Friday, October 22, 2010

Svenska grupp

2 comments:

Dog's New Clothes said...

Oh, wow. International Harvester. I went through a big prog(g) phase in high school (I say that as if it were decades ago, instead of 5 years). After recently combing through my iTunes library I ditched some (ELP, what was I thinking?), found some that held up much better than I thought it would (mid-era King Crimson, Yes, Gentle Giant) and a bunch of Swedish stuff that I'm sure I didn't listen to at the time.

IH is excellent, as are the related Träd, Gräs & Stenar and Pärson Sound. All good, slightly creepy proggy-folky stuff. Can meets Comus. My favorite though is Samla Mammas Manna, sort of a Swedish Soft Machine.

My favorite Swedish group has to be Södra Bergens Balalaikor: http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/sodra_bergens_balalaikor. Swedes doing Russian folk music with sub-par recording equipment. Glorious.

Other recs, if you care:
Tages - Summer of love-era psych
Pekka Streng - Folky Finn
Älgarnas Trädgård - Swedish Tangerine Dream?
Turid - Wonderful female vocals, a lot like some Welsh-language contemporaries

Ethan said...

Wow, thank you! I knew the different variations on International Harvester (Pärson Sound is actually my favorite), but I'm not familiar with much else from that scene, and none of the others you mentioned (though the Baronette says she knows a few of them). Definitely giving me a lot of stuff to check out here, thanks.