International Harvester

CD reissue of this all-time Swedish underground classic, originally issued on the Scandinavian Love label in 1968. International Harvester were the second incarnation of Bo Anders Persson's group, after Pärson Sound (whose early sound experimentation was finally documented in 2001 by Subliminal Sounds). Early in the 60's Bo Anders Persson had envisioned a new kind of communicative music -- would it be possible to create a more contemporary kind of rhythmic music that could play the same role as traditional folk music, a music that was both sensual and transcendent? In 1967 came the answer. The hypnotic feelings of Terry Riley's eternity music + the rough-riffing of The Rolling Stones = a new alchemical wedding. Pärson Sound was formed, which started to perform publicly in the summer of 1967. The next year they changed the name into International Harvester, taken from the American company manufacturing agricultural machines, trucks and ambulances. The astonishing thing about their two official recordings is the complete freedom of the music, inspired by a Terry Riley-esque repetitive song structure. The atmospheres of these songs are both utopian and dystopian, mixed with an early environmental awareness. Sov Gott Rose-Marie starts with the strongest of statements: the Latin death hymn "Dies Irae," played like it was a medieval heavy rock-theme. This was music of turmoil and inner upheaval, mostly played in the slowest of rhythms, but still with a sense of constant change. There's constant juxtapositions going on between documentary sounds and floating states of mind; hard rocking tunes, demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, bird song, sounds from police radio, psychedelic tranquility, lullabies.