Spjärnsvallet

The album, Again & Again is a re-release of a timeless recording that Bengt Berger had originally put out in 1975.  The extraordinary percussion colourist, Bengt Berger was on his way to Ghana, Africa from South India, where he was studying Carnatic music. Multi-instrumentalist Christer Bothén was en route from Mali to Morocco. Their paths crossed and fortuitously so because there was no telling that when anyone crossed paths with Bengt Berger, wonderful recordings would happen. Here too sparks flew and seminal music was made. This music predates much of the later American experiments with the Gnawas of Essaouria and Marrakesh; it is born of the same seduction that drew trumpeter Don Cherry into a beguiling musical web. But this is also far from the mash-up that many musicians were wont to be a part of because suddenly Africa was the new musical Mecca. This was the starting point for the group with Nikke Ström and Kjell Westling. In 1975 they recorded the minor classic album Spjärnsvallet together. «Again And Again» collects some of the material that was not released or was shortened for the LP format and feature a remastered versions of these pieces. The spirit of Don Cherry and his influence are clear but surprisingly this quartet sound as an early version of Cherry’s seminal Codona (with multi instrumentalist Collin Walcott and percussionist Nana Vasconcelos). Taking up influences from India, the Balkans and Africa, they deliberately crossed genre borders,organically blening South-Indian musical tradition with West-African traditions, with a strong sense of Ornette Coleman’s Harmolodics method of free improvisation. The seven lost pieces from the seventies sessions of the quartet shine with vibrant joy and innocence, played with an intense rhythmic drive and urgency, still sound fresh and relevant for a new age that consumes these glorious traditions in a synthesized world-music arrangements.