Nono Soderberg (1976 Nono, 1982 Rare Bird)

 

Info:

Real Name: Arno Arvid Söderberg

Profile: Finnish bassist and guitarist. Born on September 8, 1945.

I think the first one from 1976 is a hugely underrated fusion LP.  It has an enormous amount of variety and emotional diversity.  The follow up that came in 1982 unfortunately was disappointing, and almost all commercial style fuzak, apart from the beautiful vocal title track.

Note that he did appear before in connection with the Pop-Liisa series back here.  The tracks called Tide and Seagull appeared there, in live and different versions.  Apart from that, he was in multiple jazz, fusion, or rock bands in his home country, almost none of which I'm familiar with except supergroup Unisono (feat. the great Pohjola) which superficially should be a wonderful fusion album but which I've always found disappointing every time I return to it, which I probably shouldn't.

I'll post his Seagull as it is more than a little similar to the last selection (at the bottom):

For a much more tender acoustic track recalling the best of Euro-fusion like Finnforest, Transit Express, Moose Loose, etc. here's The Ninth Wave:

Really, a beautiful, strong album, from start to finish: 'no filler, all killer.'  I love it when fusion mixes high energy with acoustic delicatesse.

Here's the aforementioned Oh Rare Bird title track from the second album, which had the misfortune of appearing in the 1980s decade, with vocals:

I guess listening to that one after Seagull, back to back, the latter is just the former with added vocals.  An amazing melody though altogether, with the odd 'n' original chord changes.