Arbete Å Fritid - Slottsbergets Hambo Å Andra Valser (1972/2005 Remastered Edition)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Album: Rolf Lundqvist Å Arbete Å Fritid - Slottsbergets Hambo Å Andra Valser (Remastered Expanded Edition)
Released: 1972 (2005)
Genre: Prog-, Folk-, Jazz-, Avant-Rock
MNW - MNWCD 3005
The collaboration between Rolf Lundqvist and ARBETE & FRITID finally see the ligh tof the day. A chaotic Swedish folk-lore with kraut / progg overtones, incl. Tangos, valses, all with a ARBETE & FRITID touch, and close to a masterpiece ! Digipack. - Record Heaven
Before there was Hoven Droven and Garmarna, there was a heavy-folk rock band called Arbete and Fritid, the Jethro Tull or Fairport of Sweden (with maybe a bit of the Fugs thrown in for good measure?), with their heavy brass, electric guitars, fiddles and flutes making the 1970s in Sweden shake and rumble. They were alternately loud or elegant... vibrant and often quite wry. These early 1970s recordings were as amazing as anything being produced in England or the US at the time, merging all manner of sounds from hard rock to Medieval regality in a scattershot of musical madness. Quintessential late 60s pop with a folk flair... - cdRoots
For a thirty-year-old record to still sound ahead of its time is quite a feat. Arbete & Fritid are one of few bands lucky enough to be called legends. That they were Swedish is incidental, and to try and categorize the music they made is a futile pursuit. Their live performances were not to be missed, as they could easily shift from one musical language to another, crossing styles and genres jazz and rock but always with a folk base... - Rob Devlin
The biggest surprise (read shock)of the end of 2005 was MNWs release of Arbete & Fritids album Slottsbergets Hambo on CD, one of the smallest and most introverted prog albums from the early 1970s. Short poems arranged with the dose of fantasy that only A&F are capable of. Soft whispering songs mixed up with stonerfuzzy epic doom parts like Heavy Eddy. The CD is housed in a nice digipak with booklet. The album includes the classic line-up: Bosse Skoglund, Tord Bengtsson, Ove Karlsson, Roland Keijser, Torsten Eckerman and the strange poet Rolf Lundqvist. Rolf Lundqvist was studying at secondary school in Falun, northern Sweden, when he first came into contact with Arbete & Fritid and Ove Karlson. On Christmas day of that year, they met up and made their first recordings together. The songs from the resulting demo are to be found on this CD. During this period, members of Arbete & Fritid came and went, but by New Year's Eve of 1971 their lineup was complete. The new band's first undertaking was to record with Rolf Lundqvist, which they did in Vaxholm, just outside Stockholm, in January of 1972. Christened Slottbergets Hambo & Andra Valser, the resulting album was released in April the same year. Rolf Lundqvist debuts as a poet with this album, singing and reciting his long texts; sometimes alarming yet ingenious comments on reality, often displaying disdain towards the falsity of today's way of life. Arbete & Fritid give the poetry a suitable audio backdrop ranging in styles from waltz, jazz and tango to folk and rock music. A bonus track is provided in the form of a newly-penned song by Roffe, linking back to his texts from the '70s. - Wayside Music
Arbete & Fritid were very much in the Silence-label underground style,comparable to Trad Gras och Stenar (with whom they shared some bandmembers).The band frequently changed members with cellist and composer Ove Karlsson being the exception.The musicians teaming up in Arbete & Fritid all had a experimental jazz background but were also inspired by avant-garde minimalist composers such as John Cage,Terry Riley and LaMonte Young.But it was the newly awaken interest in Nordic folk music traditions that got the band started in 1969 and it was the bands unique blend of folk music,jazz,rock and avant-garde experiments that made them one of the truly unique bands in the early 70's,long before anyone heard of world music.Arbete & Fritid was one of the most appreciated live acts during the 70's,maybe because you never knew what the concerts were going to be like.It could start off as a rock concert,as a meditative Indian concert,as a vital folk music gig or as an avant-garde jazz night;and before it was all ended you could be sure to have all your preconceptions turned around.These concerts would many times also include some half-crazy vocal tracks,in dadaist tradition.Arbete & Fritid have inspired many other artists to experiment with Nordic folk music and with the nearly 1000 concerts they played they opened a lot of people's minds for music without boundaries.Many of the lengthy jams that made up their gigs were never transformed into records. - APB
Incredibly eclectic and strange avant-rock band from Sweden. From what I can surmise, their lyrics are quite politically charged. But it's hard to surmise much when you don't understand Swedish. At any rate, Arbete och Fritid ain't gonna win many fans over from the Genesis / Marillion side of the prog rock continuum! They do, however, show some affinities with the RIO style of progressive rock. Several of Arbete's members were previously in groundbreaking Swedish psychedelic ensembles of the late 60s, such as Trad Gras och Stenar (Trees, Grass and Stones) and International Harvester. The arty, noisy, avant-garde leanings of those bands are expanded and developed further by Arbete och Fritid.
The first, eponymous LP is rather heavy on the Swedish Folk Music tip - 5 of the LP's 10 tracks are credited to "trad. arr.". About half of the LP is instrumental as well - and the vocals are a bit odd and are kept to a minimum. None of this is as experimental and flat-out weird as their subsequent recordings (no electronics at all), but this ain't no rock'n'roll LP for the most part (though they do a primitive-psych freakout thing on Side 2). It's all quite well done, the playing is spirited throughout and their choice of material is quite good. There's lots of trumpet and saxophone which, as a jazz fan, I really liked. I especially enjoyed the last section of "The European Way", which sounds like Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry jamming on a traditional Lithuanian folk tune. On most of the other pieces, they don't really 'jazz up' the folk tunes - preferring to play them straight (rather like Kebnekaise did, only with horns and violins instead of electric guitars).
Like many of the underground Scandinavian LPs I've seen, the personnel and instrumentation is listed separately. So, you know who is on the LP and what instruments are played, but not who plays what instrument. The instrumentation is largely acoustic, and dominated by trumpet, saxophones, flute, violin, drums / percussion, and cello. Typical rock instruments such as bass, guitars, piano, and organ appear on one or two tracks only. The personnel are: Tord Bengtsson, Torsten Eckerman, Ove Karlssen, Roland Keijser and Bosse Skoglund. The only name I recognize is Skoglund - he's a drummer / percussionist who went on to play with Bo Hansson, Archimedes Badkar, Christer Bothen, and Bengt Berger. Karlsson and Bengtsson are multi-instrumentalists who sing and play violin, drums, accordion, cello, guitar, and keys on the group's subsequent LPs. As much as I like this LP, I must say that you have to have a yen for warped folk music to really appreciate it. Prior exposure to the music of Samla Mammas Manna helps a little. If Tom Waits came over for dinner, I'd play this LP for him...
I am not sure when, or if, Arbete och Fritd broke up. Ove Karlsson and Ulf Wallander formed a mindblowingly wonderful band called Nya Ljudbolaget with percussionist Hasse Bruniusson (Samla Mammas Manna) and trumpeter Karl-Erik Eriksson (Ramlosa Kvallar). Thomas Mera Gartz recorded several solo LPs and is now a revered figure in Swedish underground rock circles. - Dave Wayne, New Gibraltar Encyclopedia Of Progressive Rock
1. Slottbergets hambo 03:03
2. Te-Tegner 01:00
3. Giv oss våra dagliga bröder 03:08
4. Sveriges undervattensbåt 09:59
5. Småvarmt 03:37
6. Hör/Ave maria 04:16
7. Flöjtlåt 00:36
8. I ur å skur/Tokvalsen 06:02
9. Berätta ska jag 04:13
10. Dikter 03:19
11. Getlåten 03:08
12. My Goodnight Walz For You 00:57
13. Som Kilar 11:01
Bosse Skoglund Trummor, bjallra
Ove Karlsson Gitarr, sang, elbas, cello
Roland Keijser Elorgel, tenorsax, harskramla, sopransax, flojt
Rolf Lundqvist Sang, visselpipa, lasning
Tord Bengtsson Elbas, munspel, piano, fiol, elorgel, kor
Torsten Eckerman Trumpet, slagverk, elorgel, piano, tamburin
Daniel Karlsson Orgel
Jan Bergh Banjo
|
