Discovery of an incredible album (should be Rediscovery)
Once upon the times there really was a swedish master band, somewhere in between happy rockpop and twisted psychedelica, like on "Penny Lane". They could have been not as big as Beatles, not as broad, not as original, but quite as good as Beatles. Or actually were as good! By november 1967 when Studio was released, the members were not older than 20, compared to closer to 30 for each Beatle. What if they could have stayed in the flower power time and helped evolving it even deeper, even more far...?
Their name was Tages (later Blond) and their tremendous instrumentations are getting better all the time, well, every composition becomes more and more fantastic for every time I listen. Though I should be potentially tired of the genre, hard to delight even more, it really surprises me that this Studio album didn't gave more remaining impressions on the world than it did. In a cultural way I can understand the fact, since Tages still obviously catched inspiration from glad "old" Beatle-songs like "We Can Work It Out", "Got To Get You Into My Life", and "Nowhere Man".
Tages' most mystic portrait, the sixth track"She's A Man", seems like either "Eleanor Rigby" or "Norwegian Wood" if their sound had been dressed like a deliriously foggy sequence from "A Day in The Life". The absolute single from the end of Studio, "She's Having A Baby Now", shows a strong bond to Beatles even earlier "Eight Days A Week".
This perfectly pre-psychedelic band didn't do much fixing holes for the darker, harder rock to helter skelter through. Next album The Lilac Years (Blond) goes no further, instead it's even prettier than Studio, at the same time more whiskey-confident, reaching rather to Procol Harum or the growing number of folk singer-songwriters (lending a hand from John Cameron) than to progressive experimentations of Hendrix or King Crimson.
Tages never made any big rhapsodical patchwork like White Album or second side of Abbey Road. But in the middle of Studio, through at least three tracks, they treat the indian-instrumented discoveries of Sgt. Pepper as naturally as they already had been to India and brought home pieces to fill a half white album. However they never possess the guitarist/sitarist's focus of Harrison or his companion Donovan, seldom unshells their pearls to the bone. Tages rather shows their love for strings (the album can't wait a second to introduce some folkish swedish dance). The guys also have a good hand with woodwinds and brass (transformed into deep sounds I remember from "Octopus's Garden" and it's neighbour tracks, though they hadn't been created yet, so maybe it derives first from "Yellow Submarine").
Much on Studio is uptempo piano-beat owing to McCartney's "Lady Madonna", "Your Mother Should Know", "Lovely Rita" and very much "Hello Goodbye". But Lennon is seldom far around the corner, both in his most imaginative mood of "Lucy in the Sky", like in manifests like "Tomorrow Never Knows" and his less dreamlike dreams of the immediate
"And Your Bird Can Sing".
Among possible influences from other groups I will point out The Kinks (comes closest on fifth track "I Left My Shoes At Home") and The Who (most on the second "It's My Life") and The Zombies (especially on seventh "Seeing With Love"). Rolling Stones is a relatively distant star here.
And my personal favourite by now is... well, I always find myself willing and able to pick out the best pieces in almost every pie. But this one IS so tasteful in every little bit and big bite. Also the bonus tracks could easily had been baked in to almost a double album. At least right now I have to choose EVERY track, which is something I normally find extremely boring to do. Since even though I'm swedish, strangely enough Tages is such a fresh experience.
A splendid introduction to the band (in swedish)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeoJWFLttlM
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