Sven-Åke Johansson
Sven-Åke Johansson was a Swedish drummer, accordionist, composer and poet, born in Mariestad in 1943. He settled in Berlin in the late 1960s and was among the first European drummers to play free jazz, recording For Adolphe Sax (1967) and Machine Gun (1968) with Peter Brötzmann. In 1972 he made Schlingerland, an early solo free drum record, issued on his own SÅJ label. From 1976 he kept a long duo with pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and later worked with Jan Jelinek, among many others. At the accordion he sang and improvised verse, and he wrote pieces for tractors, cardboard boxes and fire extinguishers. He died in June 2025, aged 82.
Sven-Åke Johansson was a Swedish drummer, accordionist, composer and poet, born in Mariestad in 1943. He settled in Berlin in the late 1960s and was among the first European drummers to play free jazz, recording For Adolphe Sax (1967) and Machine Gun (1968) with Peter Brötzmann. In 1972 he made Schlingerland, an early solo free drum record, issued on his own SÅJ label. From 1976 he kept a long duo with pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, and later worked with Jan Jelinek, among many others. At the accordion he sang and improvised verse, and he wrote pieces for tractors, cardboard boxes and fire extinguishers. He died in June 2025, aged 82.
Sven-Åke Johansson, Voyager, IST, Zentralquartett, Die Enttäuschung, Giancarlo Locatelli, Alberto Braida, Manuela, Agustí Fernández, Armand Angster, Françoise Kubler, Contrabass Clarinet Project, Surprise Act
Total Music Meeting 2001 (CD)CD-only compilation of recordings from FMP's 2001 Total Music Meeting in Berlin released by a/l/l in 2002, featuring a.o. George Lewis, Sven-Åke Johansson, Hans Reichel, Carlos Zingaro, Paul Lovens, Axel Dörner, Günter Sommer, Mark Wastell, Simon H. Fell and Rhodri Davies.
Lind
Solo percussion by Sven-Åke Johansson, recorded at his SÅJ Studio in Berlin in March 2010: fifteen short pieces named after Swedish surnames, rolls, cymbals and a towel flicking on the drum skin.
Fallstudien
Percussionists Burkhard Beins and Sven-Åke Johansson with harpist Rhodri Davies, recorded at Sowieso in Berlin in 2013 and 2015: acoustic sounds that come close to electronics, plus a harp solo by Davies.
Ein Abend in Pöseldorf
Alexander von Schlippenbach on piano and Sven-Åke Johansson on voice, accordion and drums, live at Onkel Pö in Hamburg in March 1978: a free improvised take on the German Lied, recorded by NDR.
Frost
Berlin trio improvisation recorded in June 2015 by Liz Allbee on trumpet and seashell, Annette Krebs on electric guitar and electronics and Sven-Åke Johansson on percussion, with notes by Thomas Millroth.
Die Dritte Ebene
On Die Dritte Ebene, Emilio Gordoa and Sven‑Åke Johansson let vibraphone, drums and accordion run in seemingly parallel lines until a mysterious “third layer” appears - a ghost‑music of overtones, pulse and texture that neither player could summon alone.
Two Days at Cafe OTO
Drummer, visual artist and one of the original European free jazz players, Sven-Åke Johansson was never willing to settle for a single route of exploration. As a musician and composer he appeared on key recordings for the legendary FMP, delivered marine weather reports for Edition Telemark, crooned love songs for Ultra Eczema and was at the heart of the recent free music revival in Berlin via Umlaut alongside Joel Grip and Axel Dörner. “My work is not actually jazz, but rather the exploration of…
Schlingerland / Dynamische Schwingungen (LP)
Very rare first album on FMP's SAJ series from 1972, with silk-screened folded cover and innersleeve, and Johansson's uncompromising first solo album.
Tea Time
"If you think that the constellation of Nicholas Bussmann, Sven-Åke Johansson and Yan Jun is a sort of dream lineup, you are not far off the mark. The joint improvisations that you hear on tea time capture a sound that once came to Bussmann in a dream and that he made a reality with the help of his fellow musicians. The trio recorded the five pieces across two days at Johansson’s SÅJ studio with engineer Andrew Levine, working with Bussmann’s curious piano robot while Johansson was on percussion…
Villa Hügel
For over half a century, Sven Åke Johansson and Rüdiger Carl have explored the boundaries of music together. Villa Hügel captures a rare moment: a concert with no audience, recorded in 2020 in the library of Villa Hügel during the 2 x Kippenberger exhibition. The few present could only experience it in-house via TV transmission. Carl on accordion, Johansson on percussion, cardboard, and crackle box—an interplay of structure and openness, sound and silence. This release follows Johansson’s exhib…
Sabeltanz
**200 copies, of which only 100 are available for distribution** A previously unreleased recording of Sven-Åke Johansson playing a solo set at the legendary Petersen Galerie in West Berlin, 1982. The concert took place inside an exhibition of drawings by Tomas Schmit and runs the gamut from Johansson's trademark Schlingerland-style drumming to accordion sabre dance and absurdist poetry. The gallery, owned by Jes Petersen, hosted Fluxus, Actionist, Art Brut and Surrealist exhibitions and performa…
Sings With Strings
*110 copies limited edition* Everyone knows Swedish free jazz legend Sven-Åke Johansson kills it on the dancefloor, making Michael Jackson look petite in his three piece suit and killer moves! Nobody flips a cymbal with more style and patience than Sven-Åke! Whether it's a carboard cymbal, a rumbling tractor, Kippenberger's events, a brassband, a fire extinguisher or a lead pipe, anything turns into a stylish instrument in his hands.We've heard him croon before as well, though never as sugary as…
Rotations +
Rotations+ is a trio project of Sven-Ake Johansson with German turntablist Ignaz Schick and Austrian trumpeter Franz Hautzinger recorded live at the beloved Berlin experimental venue KM28 in September of 2023. The collective improvisations are instilled with a deep interest in color and timbre, and each track offers a fresh perspective. While Johansson toggles to accordion on the album’s final track, squeezing tender lines alongside Hautzinger’s moody brass and Schick’s scratch-pocked layer of w…
... über Ursache und Wirkung der Meinungsverschiedenheiten beim Turmbau zu Babel
Mega tip! Even within the sprawling oeuvres of Sven-Åke Johansson and Alexander von Schlippenbach, both known for their innovative rethinking and broadening of artistic categories, the dramatic work "... über Ursache und Wirkung der Meinungsverschiedenheiten beim Turmbau zu Babel" ("... on cause and effect of the disagreements during the building of the Tower of Babel") remains a unique and rare enigma: What is it actually? Johansson has alternately called it a music drama, an opera, and a sings…
Fläche & Figur (14 Duos Für Akkordeon Und Drumsets)
Rüdiger Carl and Sven-Åke Johansson are two fellow travelers on the path of experimental music who have worked together since the late 1960s in many formations, most notably as the wild-card Fluxus pranksters on Peter Brötzmann’s legendary 1969 recording Machine Gun, and on many more recordings and stagings of sonic interventions over the decades. In the words of Peter Margasak writing in the Chicago Reader in 2012: “Where to begin with percussionist and polymath Sven-Åke Johansson: Is he a beb…
Stumps
* 75 copies limited edition * In times of vinyl shortage and production backlog, resourcefulness is key. In keeping with his well-established practice of replacing original materials with surrogates to generate new sonic experiences, Sven-Åke Johansson has devised a digital reinterpretation of the historic flexidisc in the shape of a 10inch rubber disc with engraved QR codes that let buyers access the music online.
About the music: "The six compositions titled ‘stumps’ are based on a potential f…
Live '82
Tip! Black Truffle announce a major archival discovery from the wildest outer fringes of the FMP universe, the Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett's Live '82. The Bergisch-Brandenburgisches Quartett (BBQ) was formed in 1980 in Rostock, East Germany, when three of the most radical and riotous members of the West German free music scene -- reedist/accordionist Rüdiger Carl, percussionist Sven-Åke Johansson, and Hans Reichel on violin and his modified "strange guitars" -- first played as a quartet …
Safe Crash
**Limited to 100 copies** "Evidence hints at the event. Parts of broken drumsticks, a sound recording, a photograph and a written approach. Traces, relics. The work „Safe Crash“ by visual artist Florian Bräunlich consists of porcelain drumsticks, plastic buckets, a wooden platform, varnish, cymbals, cymbal stands, a floor tom and a spotlight on which the second release of „dispari“ is based.A sound recording witnesses Sven-Åke Johansson’s performance of Florian Bräunlich’s “Safe Crash” at HFBK, …
Rhythm Ace & Slingerland
Rhythm Ace & Slingerland, a co-production by Ni Vu Ni Connu and Galerie Max Hetzler, is one of numerous collaborations between longstanding friends Oehlen and Johansson, following from their 2003 album Shotgun Wedding, also featuring Mayo Thompson of Red Krayola. This album explores how art infuences music and vice versa – a question often explored in Oehlen’s work. The idea originated from Johansson’s visit to the artist’s studio in 2018. Oehlen showed the drummer his collection of rhythm machi…
Swinging At Topsi's
An evening of free improvisation recorded in Berlin at au Topsi Pohl in 2020 from the Swedish trio of Euro Free Jazz legend Sven-Ake Johansson on drums, Niklas Fite on acoustic guitar and Joel Grip on double bass, performing two extended and dynamic improvisations, and then settling into jazz standard form for "Isn't It Romantic" and "Out of Nowhere" sung by by Johansson. The novelty and warmth of the songs aside, the serious work heard in Sets 1 & 2 of shows the trio in fine form, evolving thei…