Swedish vocals, English vocals, other languages, instrumental International relevance: ** Certainly one of the most curious entries here, Britta Lindell's music defies any easy categorization. If there was one artist worthy of the buzz phrase 'thinking outside the box', then it might as well be her. It's definitely not jazz, it's not folk, it's not classical, I don't even know if it's prog or progg but it's definitely progressive in the sense it doesn't sound quite like anything else. Lindell was born in Lisbon in 1943 and moved around Europe, and as a trained alto violinist she had played w ..read more

Swedish vocals International relevance: * Ingemar Olsson has already appeared on this blog once, with his 1970 debut album ”Livs levande”. This is Olsson's third album, and inbetween the two albums he had acquired a higher degree of self-confidence. ”I alla fall” is basically a Christian singer/songwriter album with upfront rock and pop aspirations, but it has nevertheless a few progg ties which I think make it worth mentioning. Tomas Ernvik collaborator Agneta Gilstig appears on backing vocals on most of the tracks, and guitarist Björn Linder is known from albums by Sam Ellison, Blues Annika ..read more

Swedish vocals International relevance: */** Jerusalem was the most popular Christian rock band Sweden had to offer at the time, reaching listeners far outside the religious circuits, even playing to foreign audiences. Founded near Gothenburg, they had a lot of the straight-ahead, dry sound typical to the late 70s bands of the area. Jerusalem was mainly a mainstream band but earned their popularity from their touches of hard rock and boogie rock. Their first album (sometimes referred to as ”Volym 1”) was released in 1978 and is an undigstinguished effort that fails to make much of an impressi ..read more

Swedish vocals International relevance: - Definitely an album to ignore, being songs and spoken excerpts from a local Gothenburg stage play written by political playwrights Kent Andersson and Bengt Bratt. All Andersson's and Bratt's works have a strong socialist kitchen sink framework with a strong local colour, and this is no exception. Only one track has a progg feel, namely the actually rather decent ”Irrfärd” that vaguely sounds like a something inbetween Motvind's ”Lära för livet” and some of Ulf Dageby's soundtrack to ”Ett anständigt liv”. The album was released by Folkteatern themselve ..read more

English vocals, Swedish vocals International relevance: *** One of the 'lost' bands of Swedish 70s hard rock, with only one seven-inch released in 1973 on the Efel label. And what a seven-inch it is! Especially the 'B' side ”Svarta skogen” is a full-blooded hard rock classic. The other track, ”Speed”, might be weighed-down by embarrasingly poor English pronounciation and some flat vocals but the song itself is still good. So my interest peaked when Subliminal Sounds announced an archival release of Alexander Lucas. Especially following the label's powerhouse release of Great Ad which will sta ..read more

Swedish vocals International relevance: * Ann Sofi Nilsson has an appealing voice in the region of Maria Hörnelius, and hadn't it been for the ever so suffocating politics, this would probably had been an OK album.”När kommer dagen” ends with the millionth recording of Brecht/Eisler's ”Einheitsfrontlied” (as "Enhetsfrontsång") which says just about everything you need to know about the album. If you for some reason still need more information, it's released on Oktober, the very same label that gave us Fria Proteatern, Arbetets Söner & Döttrar and – for that they will forever burn in the m ..read more

Swedish vocals, English vocals International relevance: * Third and fourth album by Grus I Dojjan, previously featured on the blog with their debut album. These albums are simply more of the same: cheerful mix of old-timey Western folk traditions including Great Britiain, America and Sweden, performed in a devil-may-care fashion. ”Slarvigt men säkert” translates to ”sloppy but surely” which is the best description of Grus I Dojjan you'll ever see. ”Högt spel” is a little more professional sounding which in a way contradicts Grus I Dojjan's homegrown nimbus. If you're one of the two last peopl ..read more

Swedish vocals International relevance: * The featured booklet explains the album: ”This album deals with the condition of children. Some of the songs are newly written, but most of them date back to the turn of the century. You can learn a lot from history. Knowledge of the historical context can help us to greater power of action today.” Needless to say, the lyrics have a strong political bent, and while it's hard to object to the sentiment, the wiseacre approach is as tiresome here as always. The most interesting thing about the album is the all-star lineup with several of prog stellars i ..read more

Instrumental International relevance: * Latecomers to the A-Disc roster, Mantra's debut album showed more than a few commercial leanings towards the radio friendly pop rock of the day as well as dehydrated funk fusion and disco. One track, ”Swing Your Thing” suspiciously shares a few features with Toto's ”Hold The Line” which is revealing enough. ”I Sold My Soul (To Rock'n'Roll?)” is – with a question mark or without it – one of the worst over-used song titles ever. It doesn't matter that it's probably used here as a tongue-in-cheek hint at the slight hard rock charasteristics sneaking into w ..read more

International relevance: *** Instrumental, vocal effects For what it's worth, I had never heard of this album until very recently when I stumbled upon it by chance. To be honest, I had never heard of Runo Ericksson's name either until then. At least not knowingly. I have, however, heard his trombone before – he appears on numerous recordings by artists mostly in the jazz field, including national treasures Jan Johansson, Monica Zetterlund and Mikael Ramel's dad Povel Ramel. And strangely yet – he's present on one of my all-time favourite jazz albums, George Russell's dazzling live album ”The ..read more