Back in Summer 2008, at the very start of this blog, we wrote about the band Salma Gandhi, hailing from Malmö. They said then that they were working on their debut album, but it took four years more, until “The Quest For Nonsense Never Ends” was released this Autumn. But it was worth waiting for…

What they call stoner jazz appears to me as wild instrumental journey into the world of psychadelia, also coloured by progressive rock, jazz, blues and other stuff. It breathes of the late sixties/the beginning of the seventies, and even more so from from the filmic vibe in the music, where it sometimes feels like I’m drawn into a hardboiled detective thriller with car rides, smoky nightclubs and drama. But during the 75 minutes they achieve much more than that, as they can travel from a flipped-out jam to blues to a beautiful melodic ambience.

It’s a solid connective album where also the crazy track titles have their own meaning. As I understand it, the band members have made it into a kind of game, coming up with titles which with word acrobatics in some way describe the songs. What about, for example, “Paranoid Cow On a Mushroom Lawn” or “Polish Rodeo For Drunken Teenage Midgets”? Listen for yourself here below in a couple of songs.

Salma Gandhi on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

Dr. Steveroll I Presume

Then Comes Silence, hailing from Stockholm, was formed earlier this year and released their debut album, “Then Comes Silence” during the Autumn. What brought the members together was the fascination for death, doom, spiritualism and corruption and also a predisposition towards noiserock, goth, shoegaze and psykadelia. And their music feels like a blend of all this, like if they made their own mixture of goth rock and psychadelia with a horror movie theme, and wrapped it in a big thick shoegaze blanket. Listen to a couple of songs here below.

Then Comes Silence on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Soundcloud

Den stora vilan, hailing from Göteborg, have announced their third full length album, “Förvandling”, to be released on December 5th. To give us a feeling of what it’s about, they have launched a single with two songs, and a surprisingly spectacular video you can check out here below. I think it sounds really interesting in their psychadelia that has a warm jam band vibe to it, and in Swedish too.

Den stora vilan’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

I Am Super Ape, hailing from Malmö, released their second EP during the Autumn. Apparently they are working on their third EP now, which is scheduled for release in December. They serve a cool, rather raw shoegaze with psychadelia vibes, punky and with some vibes of Sonic Youth. Here’s one of the tracks from the EP.

I Am Super Ape’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Soundcloud

Kompaniet, hailing from Sala, takes us back to the early seventies’ psychadelic and progressive rock on their debut album “Vi i dalen”. Well, in fact there’s a range of influences that meet on the album, like blues, folk, jazz and rock which is also significant for that era when artists started to mix genres and experiment wildly. The songs started to live their own lives, both when it comes to length and structure. Kompaniet have found their own strong character in the middle of all this, as they cruise between Pink Floyd-influences, blues, Swedish progressive rock and folk music, from a relaxed ambience to drama.

Yes, I’m quite impressed by this debut. I don’t know more about the band than that they started in 2011 and that there are ten members in the band. You can find two songs to listen to here below, with the second one being the finishing 16 minute long “Nere i Dalen”.

Kompaniet på Facebook – på Spotify – på Wimp – på Bandcamp

Tystnaden ljuder
Nere i dalen