Instrumental
International relevance: ***
Recorded in 1977 and 1978, and a much appetizing entry to the vast
Samla Mammas Manna related catalogue, featuring
Coste Apetrea and
centered around the maverick talent of
Lars Hollmer. Their name translates into ”nights without frames”, and frameless the music certainly is, blending a
wide array of musical traditions into one highly appealing mix that those who accepts today's terminology would call world music.
”Ramlösa
Kvällar” is one of those albums that not unlike
Anita Livstrand's "Mötet" transcends musical borders and shrinks the world into
one strong unit. In other words, an album to teach us that different
traditions are basically only different expressions of the same thing and that
people can co-exist perfectly fine if only we'd give it a serious
try. (Yes, I'm naïve enough to believe that music can bring us at least a little closer together.)
The album cross-pollinates Klezmer,
Balkan, Oriental and Romani music but the very best track in this
collection is the slow but tense seven minute Swedish traditional
”Vallåten” that would have been a high point even on an Arbete &
Fritid album.
Selections from a show recorded at Gärdet in Stockholm in 1977 are included in ”Progglådan”, and a longer radio recording (from the same show?) circulates in great sound quality and should be released officially. ”Ramlösa Kvällar” was reissued on CD in 1993 with an uglier cover design.
Full album playlist