Joakim Skogsberg (Sweden)

Joakim Skogsberg - Offer rota
Hello.
Here comes my first contribution to Microlips. It's an old and obscure thing, made in the beginning of seventies. You see, I've never cared much about contemporary indie scene. Although I'm not avoiding it intentionally, my main interest is just strange experimental music. And I prefer it to be also old. That's because, when something is old, it seems even stranger. You know - wow! Is it really made 40 years ago?, or - you can't find that kind of music these days anymore - reaction.
Some of those oldtime oddities have now become cult articles. But with some things it's almost impossible to find information. This goes for Joakim Skogsberg "Jola rota" album also. I couldn't find out more, than just one short repeating sentence from the lists of various web based secondhand vinyl stores - "rare Swedish psychedelic folk from 1970". That didn't help much.
In 60/70s there were strong experimental scenes not only in UK and US. Germany, France and Italy had big scenes and most of the European countries had their leading psych/experimental groups. But I've always had an impression, that Sweden was somehow underdeveloped in that sense. Compared to the massive German krautrock wave, Sweden must have had the same amount of easylistening folkrock groups. Joakim Skogsberg is actually the only highly experimental Swedish psych freakout I've heard, except Träd Gräs och Stenar.
Anyway, the music on "Jola rota" is something really unique. It maybe called kraut influenced folk music, but that doesn't explain how trippy it is. It's like primeval chanting with the touch of Timothy Leary's LSD recordings. Mystic and ritualistic, but also spacy and timeless. Like a signal of a haunting folk music beyond centuries received through a transmitter in some spacelab.