So far this year a few 2020 albums have tickled my fancy, seemingly a harder task than it was this time last year. By December 1970 the project would be complete, and released in Sweden, but wouldn’t get an international release until 1972. Hansson finished the writing process in a small cottage on an island off the coast of Stockholm. Inspired by JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings Hansson began writing demo’s in a friend’s apartment, the writing process would ultimately get his friend an eviction notice. By the end of 1969 Bo would become a solo artist. Hansson & Karlsson released three albums between 1967-1969 and even gained the attention of Jimi Hendrix, who took time off of his tour to jam with the duo. By 1966 Hanson had moved on from the Merrymen, and formed a duo “Hansson & Karlsson” Hansson on the Organ, and Karlsson on the drums, they mainly played jazz fusion with some early flavors of progressive rock. As I found this story so interesting, I feel as I must give you an abridged background: Bo Hansson, a glorious Swedish musician/ Multi-Instrumentalist, started his career in 1960 with a blues group called the Merrymen, who supported The Rolling Stones on an early Scandinavian tour.
Thanks, Sarah Glass for planting this particular seed in my brain.
To quote my best friend, "Spellling is a magical-yet fragile-soul fairy from another planet desperately pleading for us to save ours…and discovering her identity in the process."īo Hansson - The Lord of the Rings (1970) Now it has been nearly a month, and I can't stop listening to it, and when I'm not listening, it's banging in my head.
With a much-appreciated correction from a music muse, I was able to revisit this album in a different headspace, in a different light. When this album first came out in June, I failed to give it my best attention upon first listen and moved on. Without a doubt my favorite album of the year. With such heavy themes, top-notch songwriting, instrumentation, and with such a profound concept, this album has broken and warmed my heart with each listen. The musical flavoring goes from classical show tunes to 80's synth or future pop with a brilliant blend, making each song quite palatable, exciting, and ever revealing. This album has a range of deeply layered instruments from piano and guitar to banjo and string quartet and everything in between. Below explorers the darker sides of the same feelings, consumed yet emancipated by inner-dimensional existence and experience. Above being the lightheartedness of being, dancing in the warm sun at the brightest time in the day. The Turning Wheel is divided into two parts: Above & Below. Self-produced with 31 collaborating musicians, all orchestrated by 30-year-old Tia(An 80's psychedelic Disney princess) to create what can only be called a masterpiece. Oakland CA-based Chrystia "Tia" Cabral uses the cleverly misspelled stage name Spellling to paint her experimental-progressive pop music. I hope my writing can do this magnificent piece of art justice. It feels like something I shouldn't even be sharing, something so beautiful that it's perhaps best-kept secret.
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If my Wadia and Levinson source components were not already served with Cardas and Transparent respectively, this Straight Wire cable would be high on my list.I've been pondering how to write about this album for a while now I feel unworthy. Like the aforementioned Cardas, this Straight Wire sort of represents the sound as I came to like it in the 90’s, when Krell, Levinson, Wadia et all were popular and although the use of this cable is certainly not restricted to this, I find that it works very synergistically with equipment of that time. The Crescendo II works especially well in systems that need some extra body or tonal color, such as my own setup with Apogee Diva magnetostatic speakers. It may not have the transparency of the best cables I hear but makes up for this by just sounding right, it makes you remove your thinking hat and just enjoy the music. It’s a cable that makes live recordings really sound live.
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Like the latter, the Crescendo II sounds sonorous, full and confident, with highly lifelike timbre. I’d place it in the same camp as the Cardas Hexlink Golden 5C. Different from the modern norm this is a highly characterful cable. Complex cable existing of various conductors, thick and thin.