Pennan Och Svärdet

A Swedish rock kaleidoscope Arbete Och Fritid, founded in 1969 by the key player/cellist/composer Ove Karlsson, had established themselves by means of versatile rock inquiry, based upon purified Swedish folk music. The members, frequently changed except Ove depending upon music styles, had had the point in common that they had been remarkably influenced by experimental jazz/underground rock, and also avantgarde/minimalism like John Cage, Terry Riley, or La Monte Young.
Mainly in 1970s around Sweden or Northern Europe, they had given thousands of gigs, that liberated lots of people from "typical rock" with eclectic music essence merged with folk, jazz, rock, avantgarde, dadaism, meditation…

A Swedish rock kaleidoscope Arbete Och Fritid, founded in 1969 by the key player/cellist/composer Ove Karlsson, had established themselves by means of versatile rock inquiry, based upon purified Swedish folk music. The members, frequently changed except Ove depending upon music styles, had had the point in common that they had been remarkably influenced by experimental jazz/underground rock, and also avantgarde/minimalism like John Cage, Terry Riley, or La Monte Young.
Mainly in 1970s around Sweden or Northern Europe, they had given thousands of gigs, that liberated lots of people from "typical rock" with eclectic music essence merged with folk, jazz, rock, avantgarde, dadaism, meditation…

The Gardet festivals were the Swedish equivalent to Woodstock, an outdoor gathering of underground bands and other counterculture freaks. Recorded live at the first Gardet festival in June of 1970 and not released until 26 years later as part of Subliminal Sounds' Swedish Underground Archive Series, this CD catches an early Trad, Gras Och Stenar in top form, before the release of the band's eponymous first LP. The versions of "All Along the Watchtower" and "Satisfaction" are rawer than those from the debut, though offering a similar stretched-out and stripped-down minimalism to these rock classics. The two longest tracks, "Frihetsdans i D-moll" and "Lifeforce No. 3," build slowly into intense raga mantras of powerful minimalist rock, with heavy droning guitars and locked-groove rhythms that seem like they'll never stop. The live recording quality, done by someone in the front row of the concert, is quite good for that time…