Sov Gott Rose-Marie

Like John Cale in the UK and Irmin Schmidt in Germany, the Swedish musician Bo Anders Persson was much inspired by the American avant-garde, and in particular by the early minimalism of Terry Riley. His first group, initially called Pärson Sound, had made some recordings in 1967 and '68, but these didn't see daylight until the 21st century. Soon afterwards though, the band's name having changed to International Harvester, a debut album was forthcoming in '68 on a Finnish label: Sov Gott Rose-Marie: "sov gott" meaning "sleep well".

This album, along with the Pärson Sound recordings, and the follow-up record Hemåt (i.e. "Homeward", for which the band's name changed again, this time to Harvester), were all released on CD in 2001. My copy is one of these re-issues, but I didn't obtain it until considerably later. It wasn't until 2010 that I even became aware of Pärson Sound and its offshoots (having, for most of the previous decade, been living & working in Sweden!), and it took a few more years before I got hold of the albums.

It's a game of three halves: the original A-side comprises eleven short tracks, from the doomy opening fanfare of 'Dies Irae' through the bruising psych-rock of 'There is No Other Place' and 'Klockan Är Mycket Nu', the political chant of 'Ho Chi Minh' and, best of all, the gauzily beautiful 'It's Only Love' and 'Sommarlåten'. The original B-side held two lengthy jams: 'I Mourn You' and 'How to Survive' where the influence of minimalist repetition is more obvious. The band had at one point considered using an even longer piece 'Skördetider' as the album's B-side, but decided against it. It's included as a bonus track on the CD, a 25-minute 'C-side'.

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