Lugnoro - Tellus (EP) (2009)

[padrak]

Herkunft: Schweden

Genre: Prog Rock

Wertung: 8/10

When one thinks about Scandinavia and in particular about Sweden and music, heavy music of any kind, one can't but imagine "great tunes". Up there in the northern latitudes they deeply love and make great music, bar none.
A Swamp friend from Sweden once explained in the comment box that this happens not because of water, food, stars, electric storms in the ionosphere, trolls, etc. but for a very straightforward, maybe not too poetical or esoteric, but quite effective mechanism: music is held in high consideration and gets taught extensively at schools, and pupils are encouraged to practise it.
So we continuously enjoy Sweden's skill and creativity, or else, we like to drown in the mass of killer stuff of any grade of heaviness coming from those latitudes!
In spite of what I wrote above, I'm not going to write about and introduce you to any unbearably heavy nasty stuff, but just to some great raaaawk ....

Lugnoro is a young band from Sweden, that was drawn to my attention by a Swedish friend of ours, Mats Florstam, a.k.a. NorrlandsGuld. I didn't know this band at all, my bad, and it was a great discover indeed.
Lugnoro consist of five guys from the Göteborg area.
The band's guys are surely Mats' friends, but they are also the first band enrolled by the brand new Swedish label OZIUM RECORDS.
The new label is run by Mats Florstam himself and will devote to stoner, desert rock, psychedelia, vintage-sounding prog psychedelic rock, etc. Let's say that Mats has got some "experience" in the field: the only fact that some time ago one has been involved in label Transubstans Records should make a CV plump enough ...
Band Lugnoro recently signed an agreement with Ozium Records and right in these days they are busy with the recording of their new album, the debut full-length album for the band and the debut album for the label!

The band released so far an EP, Tellus (2009), actually a rather substantial one, which is shared for free download on their myspace page.
So good!!!!!
These dudes are not inventing anything from the scratch, but they put surely great musicianship and especially loads of love and soul in what they play!!
Lugnoro play some great style of retro-sounding, keyboard-driven heavy psych-hard prog rock. A very tasty one ...
They sing in Swedish, but we have by now become used to and appreciate this strong language in the vocal parts thanks to the many killer bands from that land, and especially those "pushed" through labels like Transubstans Records (e.g., Magnolia, etc.)...

Here is a concise bio from their myspace page - young band but with quite dynamic, if not tormented, arrangements:
"The band Lugnoro was founded in late spring of 2007 by bass-man Antti Remes and myself (Emil Rolof, guitarist) after putting "The Earth Machine Band" to sleep. The thought was to play some psychedelic, progressive, heavy 70s rock with Swedish vocals and a lot of organ. Soon, vocalist Björn Hansson joined and several drummers tried out. Since things, for different reasons, didn't work out with any drummer, we decided to record a demo anyway. With Antti (ex-drummer) behind the drums "Demo 1" was recorded in january -08 at the "Vintage Loft" studio with Anders Rane engineering. Antti moved to Finland in may -08. Shortly after, we were joined by bass-player Kim Stockfelt, organist Mikael Edebro and drummer Carl Bauman. With this setting, we recorded "Tellus" in march -09, once again with Anders at Vintage Loft Studio. Anders also provided his musical abilities through an organ solo on "Familjen" and flute on "Jorden". In june -09, Kim left us as well, since he was given an opportunity to join a research team at Harvard University. A new bass-player, Filip Lange, joined us shortly after this."

So let's now say something about Lugnoro's tunes beautifully expressed in this Tellus EP which came out after so many changes in this young band.
Vocal parts are lead by singer Björn Hansson, although there are occasional insertions of choirs by the other band's members. Vocal parts are cool as Björn has a beautiful voice indeed. But what made me listen to this EP in a loop as soon as I got it, and quite regularly afterwards, is the overall sound: those great vintage-flavoured guitar-plus-keyboard jams, sometimes syncopathic rhythms, beautifully supported by a balanced yet energetic drumming. The use of some flute is soooo recalling mighty Jethro Tull atmospheres!
This is a "fake" EP because the tracks are long and even very long (up to 15 minutes), but this length is employed to develop the amazing retro jams fully. Amidst these retro-sounding tracks there's a small precious jewel, a semi-acoustic song with a magic, desert rock atmosphere and flavour.
So you go through this beautifully recorded EP and you find yourself either plunged back in the magic roaring 70's or else in a desert peacefully smoking some tasty weed while looking at the sunset and trying to remember some cool tunes back from the said roaring times ...

Only a small part of this early material will be used in the coming album which will be out on Mat's Ozium Records sometime in early 2011.

Activity is burstling in the new label, the musicians are presently busy recording and things are getting together little by little.
Ozium Records has websites which are under completion, but they will be soon fully operative. Mats will keep us informed about the progression of the activity and updates will be posted about the label and band Lugnoro's new stuff.
In the meantime, if you like bands like Magnolia, Witchcraft and Brutus, you can't but enjoy this slab of great Swedish retro rock!

MySpace