Sometimes the best ones creep up on you slowly. It took a while, but once this utterly charming Swedish band's unique synthesis finally gelled in my brain, I was completely hooked and have returned to it a disproportionately large number of times, as Vildkaktus' sunshiny mainline of winsomely lovely proggery is one of the true blue musical happy pills I can readily think of. Much of this explicitly "up" quality comes from a musical groundwork steeped in the sound of Yes circa The Yes Album, but which is then subsequently distilled through a subset of Scandanavian cultural filters that give this record it's rib sticking particularity. All of this begins to particularly stack up in a heady fashion on the thoroughly extraordinary second side, where Vildkaktus' sound opens up even further to include absolutely haunting jazz rock in the early Nucleus mold and tripped out ethic rock jams.
Get it Here
VILDKAKTUS-VINDARNAS VAGAR, LP, 1971, SWEDEN
ReplyDeleteWithout hearing a note, permit me to say that your write up of this album already has me sold.
High levels of anticipation,
The Gnome
I have to agree with The Gnome ... you really peaked my interest, I'm downloading the thing right now. Also digging the cover ... it's right up there with Birth Control's Operation lp and the art for Howlin Wolf (the prog band)!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to hear it!
Urdhr
Sorry, but i totally disagree with you. This band never sounds like Nucleus or any jazz-rock band. The instrumental work is poor and the chorus sucks.
ReplyDeleteIn any way, Thanks.
Anonymous-You're of course entitled to your opinion, but I think it's pretty disingenuous to say that they NEVER sound like any jazz rock whatsoever, Nucleus or otherwise, as the track "Vara Cyklar" is plainly jazz rock oriented. I hear a bit of Nucleus in the stateliness of it's sax themes, but I could have just as easily said Nucleus-influenced bands like Holland's Solution, which seems equally applicable for that track. When I said side two opened out their sound to include jazz rock and ethnic oriented jams, I was discussing the lengthy (almost 8 minute) final piece and wasn't suggesting this was a jazz rock album per se. I've never once thought their instrumental work was poor in the least, but then I'm hardly the kind of person to get hung up on "musical chops" or the lack thereof.
ReplyDeleteVILDKAKTUS-VINDARNAS VAGAR, LP, 1971, SWEDEN
ReplyDeleteGreat LP!
Sounds like a fusion of Grateful Dead and Os Mutantes!!!!
Love it!!!
Thank you very much, Eric!
I don't know the anonymous who posted that s/he didn't like the Vildkaktus album, but I suspect maybe s/he is a non-musician... Oddly non-musicians seem to have strange ways of judging musical ability, putting down stuff that people who are musicians will really appreciate.
ReplyDeleteJust recently I finally got Heldon's Allez Teia, and went to read the review in Dag Erik Asbjornsen's highly flawed Euro-prog book 'Scented Gardens of the Mind'. He refers to the more acoustic guitar oriented tracks as being clearly incompetent, whereas to my ears they are intricate, lovely, original and well-played [and yes, I'm a musician of some 15 years experience].
Oh well, like you say, people are entitled to their opinions! But some opinions give me the shits ;-)