TILLSAMMANS-S/T, LP, 1973, SWEDEN
In the wake of the flood of Swedish underground treasures that Jim's been unleashing, here's one more obscure piece of the Silence Records puzzle to fill in the blanks. This one's pretty strongly rooted in indigenous Swedish folk culture albeit with a sweetly blissed and quietly stoned tone redolent of all that which Swedish underground afficionados find most enchanting. The warm communal vibes afford this a sound quite in keeping with what the cover illustration suggests (and also in keeping with the spirit of Lukas Moodysson's magnificent film of the same name about life in a Swedish hippy commune). So so nice and unlike with the recently posted Kofia, you won't have to deal with any odious pro-islamic sentiments poisoning the proceedings on this one either...
Get it Here
20 comments:
"Odious pro-islamic sentiments"? Is our psychonautical record-collecting vdoandsound not so secretly a rabid neoconservative?
"odious pro-islamic sentiments"? What the fuck?
As an atheist active in the Palestinian liberation movement, I am disgusted to hear such xenophobic rhetoric, which betrays an obvious ignorance of the plight of a colonized people who use art - among other things - as means of resisting their experience of poverty and disenfranchisement. Please spare us your uninformed bigotry and stick to melting my fucking face off.
I agree with Eric. Palestinians get hundreds of millions of dollars in US aid every year and what happens to it?
But yet the US is the bad guy for giving all this aid, huh? I don't see other countries helping out as generously as the US.
When will Palestinians be successful on their own? Isn't thousands of years long enough to get their act together?
Peace will come only after Palestinians learn to love their children more than they hate the Jews.
Case in point: 5-year-old toddler Palestinian suicide bombers. What kind of sick parent would do that to their child?
You don't see the Jews doing that. The IDF at least tries to aim at the bad guys in an operation, rather than just randomly killing innocents on buses and so on.
It's no wonder the Palestinian economy sucks if all they do all day is sit around and bash Israel and Bush and the US and draw pretty pictures on the sidewalks.
Get to work, you lazies!
Kind Regards,
Jeff
a kind request to you all guys....please leave politics out of the blog...music is to unite,not to devide...if this happens here this blog lost it's main purpose:unity through music....peace
Neoconservative? Nope. Try libertarian bordering on anarchist. My distaste for organized religion knows no bounds. My distaste for organized religion in it's most repressive manifestation (i.e. islam) is completely off the charts, as should be any free thinking individuals, though as *only* islam demands to be beyond all criticism (under threat of death) it deserves a special distinction. Time was not so long ago that the left embraced heresy, blasphemy and mockery of religious institutions as a matter of principal (think Bunuel, Jodorowsky, etc.). Now, due to the self imposed strictures of political correctness, everyone is supposed to tow the party line, shut their mouth and pretend to accept religious idiology and only criticize those who dare to criticize religion. This is a complete inversion of everything I accept to be true and right. Beyond that I have nothing more to add. Nothing. Nada.
in totally agreement with Eric's and Jeff's thesis i suggest this to end up here....Don't let religions (which are always "guns" in the hands of poiticians to manipulate the mazes) to "tear us all apart....free and creative thinking is what we all preserve here...i think
Jim, I respect your wishes to keep politics off the blog, though I must add that I agree with Eric wholeheartedly. So-called "religious tolerance" is leading us down a path to global destruction. For those who'd like to explore this topic further, I suggest the excellent book, The End of Faith by Sam Harris:
http://www.samharris.org/
Jim--thanks a ton for all the great music of late, especially the rare MEV!
Kind regards, -Wm.
"free and creative thinking is what we all preserve here...i think"-Wouldn't have it any other way for anyone's God.
I think it's time to stop visiting this blog. You guys have a good time now.
I think it's time to stop visiting this blog. You guys have a good time now.
You're going to let a little political disagreement get you that upset? Thin skin, my man.
It doesn't matter to anyone but I will say that I agree with vdoandsound and that there are things more important than music : liberty to state an opinion about whatever you want without being "lynched" ...
Joseph
if you believe that something "odious pro-islamic" than simply dont share, at least dont talk about unity after thn
I agree with Joseph. A person should be able to express his or herself without fear of reprisal. Vdoandsound explained himself quite eloquently in his recent comment, and even if you disagree with his worldview you should not attack him for it. I lived for many years in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is rife with self-appointed "politically correct" snobs. After a while I became reluctant to express myself in case one of these people took offense and confronted me about my opinion. Those confrontations were always a little frightening, just like some of the letters here are, because it seemed that the person had some other agenda, and their anger seemed out of proportion to the event.
without siding with one or other polemic, i think it's interesting to observe that something that was no doubt intended and read in 1976 as secular cultural nationalism scans today to some only as "pro-Islamic." Palestinian political struggles in the 1960s and 1970s (and in thinking circles still today) were not first about religion but about the right to political equality and self-determination.
i'm a big fan of this blog and would like not to have politics ruin it which is why i was pretty disturbed by "odious pro-islamic sentiments." i am an atheist on the left and it has nothing to do with political correctness when i say i find this statement pretty odious. some of the other comments here have also put a damper on my fantasy of the mutant sounds virtual community. i guess people who are bothered by this statement are both lynchers and too tolerant and permissive. hmmm... i hope we can be brought together again by swedish marxist folkies and minimal synth postpunk in the future.
I believe it is quite impossible to leave out politics when commenting this post. Firstly because of the political theme of the album, secondly because of the politicized climate that was present with the whole genre and music scene, and, dare I say, in much of swedish society at large, at that time.
Living in Sweden during these years was quite exciting. This was a time when people still had hopes and dreams, visions and goals, and often, at least seemingly, believed in and were commited to, something else than themselves. Every stream of thought available had its engaged voices and it was an multifaceted involvement from people of all sorts. This was the good, or warm, part of those days. Someone described that time as "all was either black or white, and everything could just get better". A more realistic point of view would be that swedish economy had seen a very sucessful decade (the 60s) and its society was in many kinds of transitions. Wealth does bring about time and resources to experiment.
This recording is a very representative document of much of that era, and typically so the swedish left at that time, in all its naivity and utopia. Something it has never completely abandoned. The hippe and counter culture movement in Sweden rapidly became very politicized. Of course the radical left had its grip on most of the prog scene and was the "trend" in most of the cultural circles overall. The maoist movement had some notable initiative in this regard. Its relation to its enviroment was complex, it was undeniably an irritation to established society as it initially heavily distanced itself from the basic institutions that carried the socialdemocratic ideal, but its splitting up of the strong left was most likely welcomed, so was also its ever competing with the right in denouncing the neighbouring Soviet Union and its threat.
The musicians gathered to form this "supergroup" were in many cases running their own projects, some which were quite sucessful, and this work in a way summarizes all the skills and professionality they possessed. It is a very graphic depiction of the serious progscen at the time. Also the political stance, with its typical local-international touch, is well present in the african and latinamerican etc influences in this work. Showing its identification with and sympathy to third world revolutionary causes. Some of these musicians survived the coming winter, and stood the test of time, but the big majority either disappeared or got absorbed by professional music industry.
Much could be said about the naive and alienated parts of this would-be alternative culture. To say something; it'd be easy to spot the heavy presence of petit bourgeois elements and its never ending gulf to live and understand the realities which they so dearly expressed to confront and change. How many rebelled (at quite late years) against their upper- or middleclass enviroment, parents and traditional values and set on to make a "revolutionary" journey in velour and mah-jong that lasted about a few years? Forwarding on to high level academical studies, individualism and career; the very walk of life they had so criticized. So much of it was just a airy, "arty", romantic and idealistic worldview, with little resonance to reality.
The more politically decided and utopic leftist elements were also having their share. As an old ugly rug stands the last track which apperantly is a hail to chairman Mao. It may seem alien to most folks today that not a few people in those days really viewed stalinism as the idealistic freedom fighting cause or humanism. But such was the case in not a few instances. The "red sun" was beginning to go down however at Mao's death in 1976 and just about 10 days after that event the swedish general elections resulted in a rightist win after 44 years of unabrigded "socialist lite" rule. Of course this had its effect on the swedish political prog movement. By next year punkrock, with its critique against hippies and prog, took the whole west with a storm, later followed by the new wave. The days of prog were numbered, even in the "conservative" leftist circles in Sweden. Winter came, and few survived it. Red China made friends with the US and step by step revived capitalism, Vietnam became a part of the Soviet bloc etc.
What happened to the movement at large may be somewhat cloudy, surely most relapsed into careerism and individualism, some even got high up offices in established politics or cultural affairs. Disillusioned with the theories and visions once so firmly hold others went unto the enviromentalist camp, green wave, biodynamics, the new age, the organised peace movement, solidarity groups or any other of the daily news. Just but a few remained devout and true to their political convictions in ever dividing and namechanging sects, most of whom were small enough to fit into the closet of obscurity. Far from the popularity and sympathy of the masses they so boldy claimed to represent.
IMO this gem is a musical masterpiece, indeed, but also a monument over an ideological and political havoc.
Thanks for sharing it!
I just think it's ironic and a bit hypocritical that vdosound feels the need to disparage Islam while he(?) has gladly posted a few albums espousing Marxist sentiments without comment. Marxism, a creed that has been responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of human beings over the last century.
no one asked you whether s'thing's ironic/hypocritical in this blog, anonymous. vdoandsound (spell his name right - for a change? or are you here just for the propaganda?...) talked about religion & marxism is not one. ta-ta for now - bye-bye! bye-bye! BYE-BYE!...
Islamism is currently occupying the space formerly held by Marxism as the nihilistic kill-yr-ancestry vector in the affections of the warped Left. Despite its antithesis to so much of what the Left supposedly espouses, it does at least vigorously, self-righteously & thuggishly threaten the adolescent-Lefties' parents' values, thus making the latter feel less impotent over still 'living at home in' (and being unable/unwilling to leave) the culture their forebears created.
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