TRAD GRAS och STENAR
Hemlosa Katter (Homeless Cats)
2009 Gåshud / Subliminal Sounds Records
Upon picking up this fine disc of spaced out jams I asked a friend who is into this band if he had bought it yet. His reply went something like this…” No, buying that CD is like hooking-up with your high school love when you are 65…I would rather have the memory”. I feel sorry for his lack of willingness to explore, because this disc proves it does not matter how old you are…if you had it then there is a good chance you will still have it later on in life!
For those of you who do not know of TRAD GRAS och STENAR (Tress Grass and Stone) here is a very brief background of the band. They are from Sweden and started playing together some 40 years ago. They rose out of the ashes of the now legendary bands Parson Sound and International Harvester. Their roots come out of the minimalist music scene of the late 60’s and fortunately for us they have not stopped since.
Hemlosa Katter is a masterpiece of contemporatry spaced out trance rock jams. Over the disc’s 11 tracks the listener is taken on a ride through the outter regions of the collective mind of theses musicians. One hears the ease of playing that comes with having made music together for so many years. They are not four separate musicians playing with each other, they are a unit creating a sound that is one.
The album kicks off with the track Punkrockarn (Punrocker)…an amazing track that floats on a cloud. Delayed guitars, ethereal vocals, fumbling drums, and heady bass give the feel of being on a morphine drip…flying away with angels. After this track the albums falls into what this band does best…jam! The series of trance rock tracks that insues are pure space rock bliss. Highlights include the masterful echo guitar track Nar Drommen Var Som Vackrast (The Most Beautiful Moment Of A Dream) which sounds like some lost outtake from Manuel Gottsching’s Inventions For Electric Guitar, the ethereal Ensamhetens Tornen (Thorns Of Solitude), and the completely damaged and fried space jams of Hemlosa Katter, Folkets Lok I Obeveklig Rorelse (The Railway Engine of the People in Irresistible Motion), and Sommardisco (Summer Disco).
In my mind, age is of no consequence when it comes to making beautiful heart felt music. If the music comes from that special place within the musician(s), the music created transcends age. TRAD GRAS och STENAR’s Hemlosa Katter is proof to that!
More information and sounds can be found here:
http://www.myspace.com/tradgrasochstenar
http://www.tgs.nu
Dave W (White Hills)
