An obscure road

“I haven't understood a bar of music in my life, but I have felt it.”
― Igor Stravinsky

 

My friends sometimes ask me where I first heard or learned about a particular song or musical artist. The answer can be quite straightforward: from a friend, in a club, etc. But sometimes I don't remember, or at least cannot quite trace all of the steps that led to the discovery.

 

One such discovery is the album Ragnarök (1976, Silence Records) by the band Ragnarök. This is an album that I have not been able to stop listening to since I found it. Swedish instrumental folk prog rock jazz fusion. It is so good that I am actually afraid to listen to any of the band's later releases, which I've seen characterized as “harder”. This album is remarkable. The liner notes list the following line-up:

 

Lars-Peter Sörensson	Drums
Stefan Ohlsson	Drums, Guitar
Peder Nabo	Flute, Guitar
Staffan Strindberg	Electric Bass
Peter Bryngelsson	Guitars
Henrik Strindberg	El. Guitar, Flute, Sopraninoflute, Sopranosaxophone

 

Four guitarists—but note that only one is specifically listed as playing electric guitar. Guitars do dominate most of the tracks on the album, but not with any one sound. Some tracks sound almost classical, some sort of fingerstyle folk, some jazz fusion and some more progressive rock. Actually, there are few tracks on this album which I could easily characterize with any one of those styles, exclusively, but they all make their presence known, more or less. There are also two flutists, who likewise lend their talents in various moods.
 

There is little on this album which reminds me directly of any other band—maybe a couple of tracks could be cousins of some of the mellower early Genesis tracks, another might once have shared a drink with Gentle Giant, and one or two remind me a wee bit of Kamæleon, another band whose self-titled album rarely left my CD player when I first found it.

And in fact, Kamæleon is the first step back along the path that eventually led me to Ragnarök. Kamæleon are a Danish jazz fusion band from the late 70s. The only way that I was able to find the album was to download it from iTunes, unfortunately, and this included a cover image, but no liner notes. Discogs lists the band's members as being: Fini Høstrup, Jens Jefsen, Poul Poulsen, Steen Råhauge, Uffe Steen Jensen. I don't really know anything more about the band. The album is decidedly jazz fusion, sometimes edging over more towards rock than jazz, but mostly tilting jazzwards. How Kamæleon led me to Ragnarök is that I was searching online for more late 70s to early 80s-ish European jazz fusion, and that somehow led me to my new Swedish friends.
 

But how did I learn about Kamæleon? Well, that was the result of another web search, specifically for Danish jazz fusion. See, there was this album that had lodged itself in my CD player a couple of years ago: 20:33 (1981, Pick Up Records) by Alpha Centauri. Alpha Centauri were also a Danish jazz fusion band. Personnel:

Jorgen Emborg	piano, el piano
Bo Stief	el bass, piccolo bass
Bjarne Roupé	acoustic guitar, el guitar
Ole Theill	drums
Palle Mikkelborg	trumpet

  

This is the most “jazz” of the three albums that I've mentioned, but definitely fusion. An album that I still always enjoy when I pop it in to play.

  

And how did I find Alpha Centauri? This is where the trail gets a bit murky. The beginning is clear, but I don't remember quite exactly how it led to Alpha Centauri. It started with a Danish coming of age film, Venner for altid (1987). There is a scene in which the main character is hanging out with one of his new friends, a rather pretentious boy who—while talking about astronomy, astrology, near death experiences and Chinese martial arts—puts on an LP and comments that he and a friend are going to a concert on the weekend. The track that plays is somewhere along the continuum from art rock to space music. It is instrumental and very repetitive, and for some reason I became immediately obsessed with it.

Now, I always read the credits of movies (and of TV shows, if they are large enough and move slowly enough that I can do so). But I examined the music and song credits for this movie in particular detail. As far as I could tell, the credits did not mention this specific track. Here's where the murk comes in. I never did identify that track, but I somehow came to believe that one of the artists in Alpha Centauri (Ole Theill, I think, but I don't even remember that for sure) might have been involved in its creation. And thus, by a process that I no longer recall the details of, I came to know 20:33, and ultimately Ragnarök.

So thank you, odd little Danish feel good coming of age film, for leading me—however it happened—to three instrumental albums which give me much joy.