Vital, weird, romantic, aggressive, funny and most of all very, very swedish
In the summer of 1991 Tord Lindman and Johan Högberg were looking for musicians with an interest for the progressive and innovative music of the early seventies. Thomas Johnson and Jonas Engdegård replied to their ads and eventually they met and listened to each others material. They became friends very fast and started writing and arranging songs immediately. In September Mattias Olsson joined the group and influenced the music with his classical training as a drummer. Anna Holmgren joined Änglagård in the spring of 1992 replacing the previously engaged flute player.
With their line-up completed the band played several appreciated concerts in their hometown Stockholm. In April they visited Studio Largen and recorded a demo. The following two months were spent rehearsing and arranging the material for their first album "Hybris". The record was the result of not only four months hard work in the studio but the harvest of a one year struggle of creating music far from the commercial, musical nonsense of today. The progressive rock scene raved about the album and eventually the band was invited to play at the annual Progfest in L.A. in May 1993.
The new track "Gånglåt från Knapptibble" was recorded in August 1993, because the English magazine Ptolemaic Terrascope wanted to release a single to come with the magazine. It was during a period of energetic flow that the song (which is an early version of "Skogsranden" from the "Epilog"-album) grew to something crazy and funny. In December the band toured the U.S. playing their own compositions as well as a couple of cover-versions.
"Epilog" was recorded in the summer of 1994. While "Hybris" featured some moments of somberness, "Epilog" finds this emotion intensified in an all-instrumental setting which is sometimes aggressive, sometimes contemplative and almost always heavy with wistfulness and stoicism. The music sometimes sounds closer to the band's Scandinavian roots than the more overt symphonic progressive of their first album. Flute and mellotron are both given prominent roles in defining the morose nature of the sound here, while electric guitar and organ are often at the forefront of the harder sections.
At this time the band was already falling apart. In November Änglagård headlined the first day of the Progfest in L.A., which would become their last concert. The band stopped rehearsing and writing. A year later they met again to edit the recordings made during the Progfest which were eventually released as "Buried Alive".
Leden:
Jonas Engdegård (born in 1974): Änglagård's lead-guitarist who was also the main composer of "Epilog" together with Thomas Johnson. Later on he worked as an engineer for local bands in Stockholm. Nowadays he's an engineer with research and development of audio coders.
Thomas Johnson (born in 1974): In the post-Änglagård years he played in the Swedish version of Jesus Christ Superstar together with Mattias Olsson. The pair also got involved in the Krake-project where they played music in the vein of Swedish jazz pianist Jan Johansson. For over a year he was a member of the band Reminder as well, but eventually he withdrew from playing music focusing on his scientific research instead. He is currently a Ph.D. student in theoretical fusion plasma physics, pretty advanced stuff that no one else understands.
Anna Holmgren (born in 1969): She has been studying at the school of music at Luleå University (in the very north of Sweden) for some years. Presumably she's received a bachelor of music degree now. Right now she's going for a master degree in music at the same university (but she's doing it in Stockholm).
Johan Brand (born Högberg) (born in 1969): His signifcant bass sound was always a remarkable element of Änglagård's music. He was seen studying at a music-school close to Uppsala while working part-time at a record shop. These days he's working at a school.
Mattias Olsson (born in 1975): Shortly after the band's end he became a member of Pineforest Crunch, whose debut album "Make Believe" sold in excess of 50,000 copies in Sweden alone. For several years he played with Reminder (semi-acoustic melancholic pop/rock), appeared as a guest musician on various albums and founded the pop-projects Geller (formerly known as Andreas och jag), Nanook of the North, as well as Molesome. He has not only produced most of his own music, but also produced Celestine, Kit le fever and Texan Prog rockers Deadwood Forest, among others.
Nuja, genoeg gelul, ga maar eens lekker wat van deze meesterlijke band luisteren:
http://www.anglagard.net/sounds.htm
Niet allemaal superbitrates, maar het geluid is goed genoeg om te indiceren wat voor kwaliteit deze band bezit/bezat. Ze nemen nou allemaal namelijk even een break van een paar jaar, om zich meer te focussen op hun levens en het standaard geblaat. Wel zijn er plannen voor een DVD, maar hoop er maar niet te erg op, zeggen ze zelf, aangezien Änglagård nooit echt snel is geweest met het releasen van dingen.
Nou, gaat dat uitchecken! NU!
http://www.anglagard.net
