Scandinavian psych/spacerock.
This page will contain the best of scandinavian psychedelia & spacerock (imho).
There are at least four great acts in this genre right now in scandinavia and
they are Pseudo Sun, darXtar, Dark Sun & The Moor (in no particular order).
OK, let´s be sucked into a black hole in space then!
Whoops! a short journey, well, let´s explore this world friends!
First a short presentation of Pseudo Sun from Stockholm.
Pseudo Sun - the story so far:
Pseudo Sun was formed by darXtar bassist Juba after he split from the band in 1994. The plan of forming Pseudo Sun had already been in his mind for a couple of years, though the original plan was to run it along with darXtar. In 1995 he entered a studio with old friends Patric Danielsson on drums and Bjorn Jacobson on guitar. During the spring of -95 they recorded 7 tracks that they planned to release on CD. There was a lot of interest from record-companies but little was achieved. When 1996 came Juba had recruited a band consisting of Gunnar Oberg on guitar and Calle Thalén on drums. They decided to make another journey into the studio to get more tracks on tape. It resulted in 5 new songs. Thalén left the band after the recordingand Pseudo Sun were left with no drummer. Many drummers wre considered intil Sigge Olsson joined the band. Since record companies didn´t show interest in releasing the material, Juba decided on releasing it himself. The debut CD " Future memoirs" is available from Peace of mind records. It consists of four songs from 1995 and two from 1996. Olsson and öberg left the band in August 1997 and Juba recruited a brand new band. Mats Singh was drafted in on guitar, vocals and Erik Lindesvärd joined in on drums. Music & Elsewhere wanted to release a cassette with PS so Juba compiled a 30 minutes long cassette with unreleased tracks, released on M&E in July ´98. In May ´98 they entered the studio to record the next album, to be called "Atomic dogs don´t bark".
Above you can see Pseudo Sun in action, first ever live performance in Jönköping 15/8-98.
Their performance was an example of heavy spacerock as it should be played.
Read more about the festival on my personal page
Discography:
Pseudo Sun - Future memoirs - PSCD 9701 (CD 1997)
Pseudo Sun - Aliens only - M&E 443 (Cassette 1998).
darXtar (with Juba on bass, keyboards &vocals):
darXtar - (acid tapes TAB071) cassette 1990 -deleted.
darXtar - (spm-wwr-CD0029) CD 1991.
Isotopic Moments (acid tapes tab082) compilation cassette 1991.
Darker (garageland GRCD-005) CD 1993.
Let your freak flag fly (Garageland GRCD-006) compilation CD 1994.
Daybreak (SBMCDA 001) CD 1994.
Starlog 1990-1994 (SBMMCC 001) cassette 1995.
Review of Juha Nurmenniemi´s debut CD:
Pseudo sun - Future memoirs PSCD 9701
A swedish band with Juha - bass and vocals, Mats Singh - guitar and vocals, Erik Lindesvärd - drums and finally David Garcia Lopez on violin.
On the CD more people play, for instance the drummer and the guitarist from darXtar.
Some of the tracks on this CD has been on a demo-tape before but is now released together with some new tracks and was released a few weeks ago.
If you like early darXtar (the three first CD´s) or spacerock in general this is a CD worth buying. Some of you may recognize Juha´s name from the earlier CD´s by drax.
As I said above, this is spacerock with all the ingredients we like and want. Heavy guitars, tasty keyboards and lyrics about the magic and mysteries of space.
The CD opens with "The future rears it´s ugly head" and this is good old drax with a slower pace with a heavy rhytm-section (bass and drums), sounds from outer space, and tasty guitars.
This is an instrumental track but I think we got the picture without lyrics.
Next track is "Fulcrum of time" which starts with some synths followed by a guitar playing heavy HW-riffs from the good old days. The guitar-playing is really tasty and well done. I like this kind of guitar-riffs which reminds me of "Brainstorm" and "Master of the universe", classical and immortal HW-tracks. This track contains vocals and the lyrics is about space (of course).
Track three is called "The time traveller" and is a slower song with floating keyboards, nice vocals with interesting lyrics. The guitar is playing once again in a tasty way which reminds me more of soft progrock than spacerock but that is OK I think!
Isn´t this a trend nowadays that bands are crossing the territories and mixing different styles? Listen to darxtar´s last CD "SJU" or Dark Sun´s "Feed your mind" and you will understand!
"Middle of nothing" is a title which reminds me of remote areas somewhere in the world and that is perhaps what this track is about. If you´re living in Scandinavia you know what I´m talking about!
This track opens with a guitar playing somewhat funky!?! with swirling synths and after a while we can hear space-vocals. A new way of playing spacerock? Really tasty if you ask me!
"Secrets of infinity" is an acoustic track with a guitar playing lovely tunes and once again it´s a track containing vocals. In the background we can here sound from outerspace, O´boy do I like it!!!
Time for the last track called "Signs of life", the longest track, almost 13 minutes.
Once again a heavy track with chainsaw-guitars and lyrics performed brilliant.
This is my favourite-track on this CD although all tracks are great without any weak spots. The reason why it´s my favourite is because it combines heavy metal and spacerock in a way we doesn´t hear that often. I think a CD should contains tracks that is spanning over the whole area from acoustic/ambient to HM, maybe a way of doing it more interesting for the listener?
Regarding this CD I think the next CD will sound different since Juha wants to play other styles as well, although he will remain in the spacerock-field.
I also hope that I can get a chance of seeing them live in the future, what do you say about that Juha?
Some reviews from various sources:
Crohinga well, belgium.
Pseudo Sun is Juba Nurmenniemi´s own group of space cadets (Bjorn Johansson - guitar, Patric danielsson - drums and Chris Linderson - lead vocals). Juba himself sings, plays bass-guitar and keyboards on the seven tracks on this C60 cassette, and he does this with a lot of energy and good taste. Pseudo Sun sounds more like a very psychedelic band, not restricted to the spacerock format, with compositions that tend to lean towards a more open jamming type of musical approach. The roots of their music can still be traced back to the old darXtar/Hawkwind vibe but the way tracks like "The time traveller" and "Signs of life" are worked out shows a vivid interest in exploring different levels of mind music at the same time. This is a fantastic debut tape, full of unexpected, even overwhelming moves and just another proof that Sweden is one on Europe´s leading nations when we´re talking about psych and spacerock. Pseudo Sun is a new adventure you just gotta hear; don´t miss it!
Galactic zoo dossier, USA.
Pseudo Sun - Future memoirs: Epic progressive psych from Sweden in the grand tradition... Normally such technically proficient prog doesn´t appeal to me ( únless it´s a 70´s vertigo swirl thing) but there´s a strong conviction in Pseudo Sun´s craft, and flashes of yonder greats like Hawkwind, gong and aforementioned "swirl" artists like Warhorse, May Blitz, etc. Spacey electronics are all but the norm these days, but here they are used effectively and take things further"out" there. I would possibly urge more full out experimentation, and defying expectations a little more, as most songs go into fairly predictable realms. I am strongly reminded of 80´s Hawkwind, which is not a bad thing, but there are new places to go.
Astro zombie, UK.
Pseudo Sun - demo cassette: The blood makes it thrilling exodus from my eyeballs as I´m ripped and torn by the audial gravitational force of this tape. Some bloke outta darXtar has formed his own band. It´s more or less darXtar but a little more. He´s trying to move away from just cloning Hawkwind, he´s trying a few different angles. At times, it´s a bit metal. It´s just kicked into some Iron Maiden metallic guitar and bass riffing. It´s like heavier, metal version of an early 70´s Hawkwind jam, you shouldn´t do that, without Nik Turenr and the sax but an 80´s metal edge, dark and heavy with some blistering metal solos shooting all over the place. The next tracks are well mellow and remind me of Sundial. It´s still Hawkwind spacerock, no question of that. darXtar are good at what they´re do but it´s easier to get bored with it. Pseudo Sun have tried to do something a bit more, tried to augment more textures to the darXtar/Hawkwind formula. But if you´re not already into that type of stuff, you won´t be won over by this. A couple of the tracks dull standard bluesy Hawkwind work outs that fail to acheive much more but at other times they are powerful and produce the effects of the initial sentence. Worth checking out and bleeding over.
CDS -Andy G, UK.
Pseudo Sun - Future memoirs: Fresh out of Sweden comes a new spacerock band with a set of strong songs and intrumental passages, influenced by you-know-who, with some sweeping synth arrangements and lots of exciting electric guitar work, underpinned by driving drums and electric bass that really do hold it all together. Compositionally, the Hawkwind influences are apparent on tracks 2 & 3, with a sort of spacerock meets early Black sabbath on the twelve minute track 6, a psychedelia-laced acoustic track 5 and an instrumental track 1. The vocals are a little bland, almost flat on track 4, but the musicianship glows, although the first half of the nine minute track 3 is a tad tedious, but they make up for it on the white hot end nine minutes of track 6 with some sizzling guitar work. Overall, bearing in mind that it rally is more of a meeting of psychedelia and spacerock with it´s feet in both camps, this is a recommended album.
Next band to be presented is Dark Sun from Finland, a bunch of guys who does a very powerful and interesting style of progressive rock. i think we can find several styles of rock actually - space/psych/prog, a colorful mix and their debut-CD was and still are brilliant, perhaps one of the best releases last year?
Tracks on the CD are: Tiny the man, Feed your mind, black spires, our man inside, astral magic, phantastica, abduction files & the next stop.
Below a short biography.
Dark Sun is a Finnish psychedelic spacerock band from Helsinki. They started in 1991. the current line-up is : Sigfried Long - electric acoustic guitars, samples / Yelló Gismo - vocals, percussion / Mik Ronik - Keyboards, synths, programming, b.vocals, guitar / DarkSanttu - bass, b.vocals / Jesús Luxus - drums, programming / Jurtsa - guitars.
As you read above Dark Sun was founded in Helsinki, Finland, 1991. For the past years they have been touring in Finland, Germany and Sweden. Dark Sun are now working closely with a former member of "Hawkwind", Nik Turner, who has been touring with American and Scandinavian space/psych-bands for the past few years along with his own band called "Fantastic all stars". Mr. Turner attended a Dark Sun gig at the Tavastia club in Helsinki in July ´99, which was also recorded for a possible future release. He has also added flute/sax/narration onto a forthcoming Dark Sun album. Dark Sun are also planning a special visual stage experience in parallel with the music.
The music Dark Sun play is often referred to space/psychedelic rock by the media. Influences range from the acts of the 60´s all the way up to their own contemporaries. Despite of this wide spectrum of styles and signs of time their approach to music has always been seen as very distinct and avantgarde.
Stage shows (some distinctive examples):
1999 Never trust a hippie w/ Nik Turner (Tavastia club, Helsinki, Finland)
1998 Nights of arts (Helsinki, Finland)
1998 Space & Rock festival (Jönköping, Sweden).
1997 Space party ( Hamburg, Germany)
1997 Colossus progressive music festival (Tavastia club, Helsinki, Finland)
1997 Old studenthouse progressive festival (Helsinki, Finland)
dark Sun has released a couple of tapes, a 7" in ´96 and a full lenght CD called "Feed your mind" in ´97. They also participated on a brilliant comp. called " Metazoon" last year with the track "Time-space continuum". in ´99 they will record their second CD.
Contact:
Santtu Laakso, Fleminginkatu 10 B 22, 00530 helsinki, finland.
below you can see an "old" photo of the group
And one live-picture taken 1997 somewhere in Finland
Some new pics taken during ´97-´98
Rivendell´s debut CD, which included Janne on vocals, is a real killer if you´re into symphonic stuff with a rock´n´roll edge.
Tracks on the CD: puppet king, pain & light, candles in the snow, divided we stand.
Lotus - a biography (their own words)
..."the music starts when words end"
The music of Lotus changes as much as the weather or the human mind. But in the same time the basic human consciousness is unchanged as the laws of nature. we got inspiration from finnish forests and beautiful nature. The visual concept can be heard on this CD and from our live shows. We have done many gigs in Finland (around 50). now it´s time to expand our musical capability. Our musical influences comes from different kinds of colourful music; psychedelica, fusion, progressive rock, classical (Sibelius, Stravinsky etc...) The voyage of lotus started in 1994 as a one man electronic project. the guitarist and the main composer Ville Juvonen won a nationwide composition competition in 1996 with his electronic music. In the beginning of the same year Lotus started as a band. We are also doing freak videos which are shown on our gigs, and music videos which have been broadcasted on TV. We are also looking for a record deal and concerts in Europe and elsewhere.
Below the cover of their debut-CD "Lotus the totuus"
Tracks on the CD: Aamutuimaan (Awakening - the morning mood), Metamantra, Saveus, Spread the shanti, Macrocosmonaut, Northern counting, Maani maisemaa rauhaa, Mescalito, Luotu (Created).
One of the new space/progrock-bands that does their own interpretation of a style invented in the late 60´s and early 70´s by groups like Hawkwind and Pink Fairies.
Since there is a very good "homepage" run by Paul Ward from Australia it´s no use doing a second one so please visit the land downunder for more info about this faboulus group from Sweden.
Click on picture for more info about darXtar,
or go to darXtar´s own "new" page below.
This swedish group also belong to the "new" wave of space/progrock although The Moor lean more towards a progressive style a´la King crimson. They also work/play with Nik Turner, ex-hawkwind and leader of Inner city unit many years ago. Nik is known for his crazy style on stage but nevertheless a skillful sax/fluteplayer.
Below a nice livepicture.
Above you can see a group-picture with Nik included. The same goes for The Moor, they´ve got a great homepage so theré no use inventing the "wheel" once again!
Click on the picture to get to their own homepage.
More will follow shorthly, Peace friends!
Mail to Peace of mind records:
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