10 June 2023

PER SVENSSON PSYCHEDELIC SOUNDS – Magic Trip (2023, LP Kommun2)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Kommun2

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl, 300 copies

Release Date: 28 April 2023

Per Svensson is not a fortuitous name in the Swedish underground scene. Per is a sculptor, painter, and sound artist, born in 1965 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Active as a musician since the ’80s, Per released his first EP on ‘Radium 226.05 Records’ in 1987, then working with sound art and poetry. Per Svensson is also known for his cooperation with Freddie Wadling and the Kingdom Of Evol albums ‘Dark Passages Nocturnal Incidents’ and ‘The Second Coming Of Pleasure And Pain’ on Progress Production, in 2012 and 2014. He founded the neo-psychedelic rock group The New Alchemy with Ebbot Lundberg (TSOOL, Union Carbide Productions) in 2002 and released 3 albums, the latest (‘On The Other Side Of Light’) in 2013 on Subliminal Sounds. “On The Other Side Of Light” is the album that introduced me to this brilliant stunning musician, Per Svensson! Per’s latest adventure is called Per Svensson Psychedelic Sounds and the fellow musicians in this band are Pontus Torstensson (drums), Rasmus Alkestrand (Sitar), Linus Kuhlin (Bass), Gunnar Frick (organ), and Per Svensson (vocals, guitar, bass, drums, organ [hammond organ with Leslie], harp [mouth harp], harmonium, piano, metallophone, effects, field recording). In a recent interview, Per said about the album: “The songs are like images, memories from my life. The songs are about life and death and the journey of the spirit via nature. The album tells different stories, combine poetry, field recordings, melodies, expressions, colour, and temperament in an obscure way. Nature is a source, Instruments and voices are recorded with analogue equipment”…

“Magic Trip” is an album of 10 songs, equally split on both sides of the LP with a total duration of 51:25 min. The atmosphere of the opener “Magic Fingers” by the very first second brings to my mind that amazing Psychedelic soundscape from the New Alchemy’s album “On The Other Side Of Light” (2013). Trippy, heady music with a totally Neo-Psychedelic environment that is dressed with such impressive and interesting lyrics like “… it’s time to do our thing, to light up everything… where Magic Fingers play…”, this is just another reminder that NATURE can be so PSYCHEDELIC at times, or most of the times, or all the times! The surprisingly fantastic “Born To Go” follows, a “Glowing” stunning speedy Neo-Psych tune with maximum power and full of Psychedelic adrenaline, while the lyrics are deeply autobiographical and full of Psych fury, a super-delic track that can easily set the stage (every stage) on fire, literally! “Together In Darkness” introduces a tremendous US West Coat late 60s electric guitar sound that is blending with an astounding Psychedelic background with a shinning lysergically trippy organ sound (and a little Doors-flirting), a cool adventurous Neo-Psych Journey to the other side of Light, to Darkness! With “The Energy That Heals” the band makes a huge dive into the mind-bending hallucinogenic Psychedelic 60s but presented here with an unexplained fresh complexion, a dark Psych ballad with rather healing effects… “She” is another dark and full of melancholy track drenched in PSYCH, a kind of erotic song filled with all necessary ingredients (sitar, slow melody, Leonard Cohen-like vocals)… Side ‘B’ opens with “Bleed”, a slow and torturously trippy track with a late 60s Psych charm, a heavy n’ heady electrically charged mind-fuck song! “The Tree” is an eerie creepy-like dark and quite atmospheric psych slow track with (as always) really interesting lyrics like “… and you die you become a tree…”, the best way to describe the song is to simply call it a Psychedelic dirge about Mother Earth… Speaking of Mother Earth, the next one is called “Mother Nature’s Child”, another slow track drenched in melancholy and despair (maybe), a sitar-laced trippy song, a Psychedelic cry about the Supreme Good of all that is given to us, Nature… “The Wind Is A Storm” is a very Floyd-inspired electric bluesy-psych ballad while the album comes to an end with “Vågorna Rullar” (which translates to “The Waves Roll”), dark, hallucinogenic, and creepy-like Psych atmosphere in a torturously slow background, that you may call it Neo-Psych Creep-a-Delia! So, Per Svensson and his gang delivered to the world a fantastic Neo-Psychedelic album, one album that certainly holds the Psychedelic Flag high, an album that is ONE of the BEST of 2023! Grab it! Yesterday! TimeLord Michalis

Tracklist

A1	Magic Fingers	4:00
A2	Born To Go	6:21
A3	Together In Darkness	7:09
A4	The Energy That Heals	3:52
A5	She	4:06
B6	Bleed	6:34
B7	The Tree	5:43
B8	Mother Nature’s Child	4:54
B9	The Wind Is A Storm	3:58
B10	Vågorna Rullar	4:48