Swedish acidfolk review page

Wild PlacesCauldron : The Sanctuary Suite (S,rec.1998,re.2003)****

In a couple of weeks I'll have more radioshows on Sweden, with one or two radioshows about the folk flavoured items from Sweden. From the new scene The Entheogens, S.T.Michael's Psychocosmic Songs, Adam's Eura still are my three favourite albums, but this one comes close.

"Cauldron" is a duo project by Jens Unosson & Arne Jonasson of the Holy River Band & The Spacious Mind, two folk / space psych groups from which I heard only a few albums before.

This album, "The Sanctuary Suite" is called an "instrumental journey" and it pretty much works like this.

First track, "The Sea/The Road", with the sounds of whales combined with bluesy electric guitar is almost exactly what Jim Nollman did with his "underwater guitar" where whales responded, only here I assume it's only a mix of lets say fitting similar sound explorations. Later some keyboards finishes the sounds making it an enjoyable soundscape. Last five minute part of this 22 minute track added also some harmonica, bass and rhythmic texture making it a moody trip. This was the start of an evolution in sound towards the perfect spacey trip of "the cathedral", with some sitar near the end. "In the City" starts again," with similar, like on "The Sea/The Road", slide guitar improvisations, but this time with cathedral bells in the background. Last track "The East/The Dream/The Bliss" continues the sitar improvisation with a droning keyboard and textured additional echo-effect like second guitar (?) improvisation sounds, and crystal bell like sounds. This almost logically evolves into a more jazzy mood during the second part (keyboard drone, trumpet & sparsely answering sax, sparse guitar & electric bass, percussion, dreamy organ). This is pretty long and loop-like in its ideas, but the sound is perfect enough to create a stoned-like listen. And compared to the whole it makes, still a perfect timed end. In general I can say that all ideas, in music as with interacting sounds and melodic textures the group absolutely succeeded in creating a conceptual like soundscape. Recommended. Both members seemed to have evolved and became experienced in a longer history with Spacious Mind and Holy River Family Band.

(This release was originally released in 1998 on one of the better Swedish labels, Garage Land Records).

Label entry : http://www.thewildplaces.com/htmls/labels.html

E-mail label: ACEofDISCS@aol.com

Other reviews : http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue7/cauldron.html

& http://www.stormbringerwebzine.co.uk/Reviews/C/Cauldron.html

http://www.unimeri.com/PsychotropicZone/reviews_2001.en.php#CAULDRON

& http://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Backstage/8250/yetanother13.html#caul

& http://groups.yahoo.com/group/prog-reviews/message/228

Short entry : http://www.psychedelic-music.net/pmdb/db3/db_band.php4?id=149

Interview with Spacious Mind : http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue8/spmind02.html

Wild Places

Holy River Family Band : Earthquake Country (S,rec.1998-2000,re.2003)**°°

This release is more on the acoustic / song oriented side compared to the related Spacious Mind group releases. Most of the inspirations on the first half of this release are more dark mirage-like in a melodic sense, with some gothic use of voice on two tracks. It has less inspiration with sound creativity. Being musically inspired from a more mirage-like darker-centred-vision-sound various songs are musically build around it. Another attention I found already in the intro of "the bitterroot trail". After that all remaining tracks I found more successful, because here the music itself is much more direct, and inspired with more clarity. First we have "Forget", with a beautiful jazzy flavoured acoustic mood with fingerpicking guitar, warm electric guitar arrangements, handpercussion and warm voice, with some flair of exotism in the acoustic guitar improvisation. Also the track after that, "Bibleman's.." continues to explore this beautiful mood. It includes a beautiful improvisation, some female vocals, some wahwah guitar effects. Also the last track, "Suffering/Robert" is musically very interesting for its combination of use of instruments (+text & vocals) and for its varied acoustic psych evolution. A strong closer. Some of these tracks I will surely give some deserved attention.

PS. The title comes from the unreleased final Grateful Dead studio album.

Label entry : http://www.thewildplaces.com/htmls/labels.html E-mail label : ACEofDISCS@aol.com

Other review : http://www.aural-innovations.com/issues/issue19/holy03.html

& http://www.psychedelic-music.net/pmdb/db3/db_band.php4?id=141

& http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/holy.river.family.band.html

& https://www.freakemporium.com/new3/index.cgi?artist=Holy%20River%20Family%20Band

Review of the related "Cauldron" project you can read at the acid folk reviews pages

Two Spacious Mind releases are reviewed at http://progressive.homestead.com/prog4.html

Goddamn I'm a Countryman Records

Jens :

Standing in the trees / gifted by the leaves (S,rec.2000,rel.2003)***

This is performed in a good combination of West Coast style with a psych folk touch, played using soft handpercussion, various acoustic and electric guitars, background sitar, murmuring vocals and second female vocals, sweet organ, and is song oriented. This style of approach is fine, but I think it still might have been restricted a bit too deliberately for a consistent sound. It could have been better with more contrasting styles, at least in vocals. For me it loses a bit of its convincing honesty in inspiration, and

that's a real shame, because the songs and mood and general arrangements, I really like.

Label :http://www.countrymanrecords.com/

Other review : http://www.unimeri.com/PsychotropicZone/reviews_2003.en.php#JENS &

http://www.fakejazz.com/reviews/2003/spaciousmind.shtml

Goddamn I'm a Countryman Rec. Jens :

If You've seen me lately, please tell me where I've been (S,2006) ?

review moved to http://singersong.homestead.com/newsingers-12.html#anchor_545

Hapna Rec. A Taste of Ra (II) (S,2006)****

With a name like this, it is easy to be reminded of Sun Ra. But there is no real direct reference. Ra not only is the Egyptian God of the sun, I consider the sounds of its name (based upon some self-penned theories and experiences I will not explain here further) to be related with a life and structural challenge giving energy, eventually, in tempo, and with its own time schedules. It is some odd combinations of tempo’s mixed, that seems to be some architectural idea behind the group’s recordings. I read on Boomkat this group is rumoured to be a project by Swedish Will Oldham collaborator Nicolai Dunger. I don’t know who this is. I only know there is seemingly a singer-songwriter at work who delivers songs but also improvisations and the aforementioned sound architectural ideas. The building-project foundations are first of all the recognisable songs, which are double-dubbed in the same way as Devendra Banhart, making comparable associations in a wider sound experiments context, and with its own feeling of a freedom of the singer-songwriter-blues or -jazz or -mumbling. The instrumental arrangements are the most bizarre thing. There it seems that the acoustic guitar tangling is often one step away in tempo from the singing, while the flute is already a few steps away, and the sax reaches even the edge of control, with more freedom and a bit of free-form. To that, here and there, very old vinyl recordings (real or faked and slightly jazzy), mix in, more like chaos, finding a calm responding conflict in the present music. To bend all this together the improvisations stretches from a controlled edge to the edges of freedom. The background chorus accompanies here and there in lalala, nanana and tadada form. After all these arranged expressions, based upon song, improvisation and oddly combined tempo layers, the last two tracks are a bit of a different conclusion. “The Fox and the Frog” sounds like a fairytale narrated by a female narrator, in a rather Witthüser & Westrupp mode, with the tangling acoustic guitars, moody flutes, hand percussion rhythms, and some nanana and leyleyley vocals evolving to an instrumental outro where every element harmonises to an almost inner-celebrative feeling, campfire-warm, and like a carpet improvisation, expanding to overloads of nana, lala en aaaa and even iii, with the well fitting, in such methods of improvisations, harmonium, besides some additional layer of violin improvisations. Interesting !

Audio : “Radhe-Shyam in bliss land”, "37 urns ’round You", "Di Spears", "Wind and the mountain II"

Label info : http://www.hapna.com/H30.html

Review with audio : http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=23822

& other reviews : http://www.dotshop.se/ds/release.php?code=H30CD&rand=126658430

& http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/a.taste.of.ra.html

Previous mini-release reviews : http://swedesplease.blogspot.com/2005/05/taste-of-ra.html

& http://www.blrrecords.com/prod/1193/a_taste_of_ra.html

& http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/2377

& in French : http://david-f.livejournal.com/202235.html

& label info of it : http://www.hapna.com/H23.html

Hör Up! Remos Third Ear -EP- (S,2007)****

This, for me, absolute convincing, professionally mixed, nicely fluently arranged, internet-only release and recording of three tracks, which you can hear entirely on their myspace site. It has this late ‘60s, early ‘70s feeling, great fuzzes and reverb effects, psychedelic acoustic guitars and worbing flutes, with dreamy but focused on songs vocals (on “of past times”), with harmonies that make you dazzle (on “soothing silver rain”), and also campfire-stoned percussion mixed with acoustic and fuzz guitars (on “in the garden”). This is something I’d like to hear for repeated listens. Hope to hear more from them in future ! Very promising. Labels, take them in !!

Homepage for audio & info : http://www.myspace.com/remosthirdear

Label : http://horupp.inc.se/ & http://www.myspace.com/horupp

with info : http://www.hagblomsel.se/horupp/remos.htm