posted 10/22/2007 12:42:13 PM

Pärson Sound

by Alan Licht

The Swedish band Trad Gras Och Stenar (formerly Harvester, formerly International Harvester, formerly Parson Sound) is a true beneficiary of the CD era. Their late 60s/early 70s albums are world-class examples of dark, lo-fi psychedelia with a foot in the avant garde, but were hardly heard by anyone until they were reissued on CDs—and those releases were supplemented with bonus tracks, most of which were too long to have fit on an LP side, which were just as good if not superior to their extant output. Founder and guitarist Bo Anders Persson was originally an aspiring modern classical composer. A Stockholm visit in 1967 by minimalist pioneer Terry Riley proved to be a decisive influence on Persson, who participated in performances of Riley’s “In C” and “Olson III” during the composer’s stay (a live recording of the latter was released by Cortical Foundation in 1998). In those pieces, the players are given a few 2 or 3 note phrases, which are to be repeated and varied throughout, and this became the model for Persson’s rock band improvisations. Whereas John Cale incorporated the droning viola parts he was using in performances with La Monte Young and Tony Conrad into the Velvet Underground’s song arrangements, Persson used Riley’s ideas as a primary structural element—he saw the connection between the repetitions in two minute rock and roll songs and in Riley’s long-form pieces, and Parson Sound was born.

Persson was joined by horn player/vocalist Thomas Tidholm, drummer Thomas Mera Gartz, bassist Torbjorn Abelli, and electric cellist Arne Ericsson. By the time of their debut album, 1968’s Sov Gott Rose Marie, they had already changed their name to International Harvester, after a US manufacturer that made trucks, ambulances, and agricultural machines—perfect for a group that combined machine-like repetition with rural images and sounds. Released on the Love label in Finland, as no label in Sweden would release it, Sov Gott stands as a pinnacle of late 60s pop experimentalism. It’s divided into two distinct parts: short tracks on the first side, two stretched-out jams on the second. The album opens with “Dies Irae”, horns playing a stern, foreboding medieval fanfare. A pounding rocker, “There Is No Other Place” (covered in 1990 by Boston psych outfit Crystallized Movements) follows, with sustained horn & cello lines fortifying the sound with piercing harmonics. “The Runcorn Report on Western Progress” has traffic noises, hushed vocals, and even a triangle; then there’s a quick Chuck Berry parody, a group chant of “Ho Chi Minh”, the languid, dreamy “It’s Only Love”, and the doomy, melancholic title track finishing out the side.

The montage effect of side one ranks with those of Magical Power Mako’s first album, the Deviants’ Ptoof, and the early Faust albums as one of the finest of the first psychedelic era. Side two provides lengthier examples of the group’s improvisations. “I Mourn You” is the first of their trademark two-chord jams. As various group members join in the wraith-like chant of “I Mourn You” it seems more like a document of a religious ceremony than of a band playing; indeed, the back cover photo of the band members with a dozen other friends gives the connotation of a religious cult, or commune band, a la Amon Duul, Ya Ho Wa, or later, Psychic TV. After several minutes “I Mourn You” cross-fades into the meditative, acoustic “How to Survive”, recorded live in a park in Stockholm (you can hear children and dogs running around in the background). The bonus track on the CD reissue of Sov Gott is a 25 minute instrumental called “Harvest Time” that’s one of the band’s finest performances; a slowly building reverie with some searing playing from Persson.

The album’s immediate successor was 1969’s Heimat, credited to Harvester and released on the tiny Decibel label. Even more primitively recorded than Sov Gott, the emphasis has shifted to the modal jams but here they don’t go on quite long enough to pick up steam. Tracks like the opening “Kristallen Den Fina”, a traditional number, remind you that the trance-inducement of the band’s sound is equally rooted in folk music; at times Harvester sounds like a Swedish Steeleye Span or Fairport Convention rather than a Velvet Underground. By 1970 Tidholm had departed, Ericsson switched to keyboard, and he and the others had regrouped as Trad Gras Och Stenar (Trees, Grass and Stones) with more of an emphasis on guitars and songwriting but retaining the thudding minimalism of the earlier music. An early gig at an outdoor festival was released as Gardet 12.6.70, and surprisingly enough boasts the best fidelity of any of their recordings (a friend recorded it on a portable tape deck). With their fat, distorted guitar and bass sounds, this edition of the band recalls the Pink Fairies, especially on a bruising reading of a traditional folk tune, “Tegenborgsvalsen.” They also debuted covers of Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” and the Stones’ “Satisfaction” that would appear on the first TGOS LP, indicating their more rockist leanings.

Adding guitarist Jakob Sjoholm, two subsequent records were recorded on tours in the early 70s, Mors Mors & Djungelns Lag (both reissued on CD by ½ Special a few years back). By this time Trad Gras’ sound fell somewhere between late period Velvets and the Band, although the playing, especially on Mors Mors, had gotten more slipshod. Sov Gott’s “Sommarlaten” became the band’s “Dark Star”, using the sinewy melody of the original as a basis for epic, chiming guitar interplay (the half hour take that appears as a bonus track on the Mors Mors reissue is well worth hearing). Trad Gras fell apart in 1972, reformed briefly in 1979 and again in 1995.

That was the end of the story until the two-CD Parson Sound was released in 2001. This set is still the most revelatory, mind-blowing archival release of the decade. It collects recordings of the earliest incarnation of the band, from 1967, when they were still mostly playing at art exhibitions. The standout track on the first CD is “From Tunis to India in Fullmoon (on Testosterone)”, which sounds like Terry Riley sitting in on sax with the MC5 for a particularly blasted rendition of “Black to Comm”; twenty minutes of glorious babble that genuinely lives up to the mythos of the 60s underground. “A Glimpse Inside the Glyptotec—66” is also valuable as an example of Persson’s tape pieces; here he layers his own vocals, accentuating the overtones (another piece, “Proteinimperialsm”, was issued by the avant classical label Wergo on a split LP with Folke Rabe’s “Was?”—the Rabe side was reissued on CD by Dexter’s Cigar but the Persson track has yet to be digitized). The second CD features outtakes and early versions of the Sov Gott material, including a stupendous radio broadcast medley of “It’s Only Love” (in its original incarnation as a Who-like beat number), “Till Indien”, and an extended, more aggressive take of “Sov Gott”. Parson Sound is the rare example of an official release serving a function usually left to bootlegs: making available the behind the scenes history of a band only represented by official, 40 minute releases. Like the rest of these Swedes’ catalog, it simply must be heard by any fan of psychedelic rock and 20th century experimentalism.

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