Stefan Nilsson again with the earlier Det Är Nu Först Jag Ska Börja (1980)

This album features Stefan on acoustic piano.  Note that he's accompanied at times by saxes, marimba or vibes, and harmonica on the first track which is a complicated blues number.  I was curious about it since it came just before the Music for Music Lovers masterpiece, in 1980.  But too many of these pieces sound like etudes written for a classical composition class, same drawback as the Romantic Piano LP I ripped earlier this week.  The slight progressive ideas of the third track are the best material:

I'll hopefully be back later on the weekend with more interesting material.  The hunt continues.

The amazing Stefan Nilsson: Music for Music Lovers (1983) Romantic Piano (1985)

It seems almost criminal that his solo works are almost forgotten.  On this blog I presented the stunning progressive songwriting collaboration he made with Thomas Korberg (from the well-known Swedish band Made in Sweden, followed by Solar Plexus)-- an LP which remains for me one of the most beautiful albums I have ever heard in this lifetime of seeking out advanced and unique music; but following this he made three more albums of which the (prog) highlight is Music for Music Lovers (1983).   For music lovers indeed-- no simple-minded commercialese-enamoured lowlife with a small acoustic cerebral hemisphere could ever enjoy this intellectual, advanced, delicately varied, and very thoughtful album and I can only imagine what a horrific reception it must have received in the year 1983 when everyone was obsessed with Duran Duran, simple chords on digital drums, and I want my MTV.  The title track pretty much says (musically) it all:

Before anything more, Stefan Nilsson:

Swedish composer and pianist, born 27 July 1955 in Kukasjärvi, Sweden.

On this blog we have already heard plenty from him when he played super-energy fusion with his band Kornet.  Boy do I miss those days.  I wish the fusion trend could've lasted forever.  Following which, he was in the short-lived one-off band with guitarist Coste Apetrea (from Samla etc.) De Gladas Kapell.

Subsequently Stefan made this instrumental piano concerto-type record with an easy listening style string orchestra-- well, I should say it's more of a complete classical orch, don't want to insult anyone-- presumably to showcase his classical composition skills.  I can't imagine how unpopular this must have been in the mid-80s when already 'muzak' had such a bad rep.  This is not as progressive as the previous record, though he is capable of some very intriguing composition as in the track very atmospherically called Morning Mist:

Credits:

Stefan Nilsson - Steinway piano, keyboards, QX-1 sequencer
Strings from the Royal Opera House Orchestra

Conducter - Örjan Fahlström

Orchestra leader - Zahari Mirchew

All songs composed by Stefan Nilsson (except 5, Michel Legrand)

String arrangements - Stefan Nilsson

Produced by Stefan Nilsson

Tommy Körberg & Stefan Nilsson - Blixtlås (1979)

Tommy Körberg was in the prog band Made in Sweden from 1975 to 1977, and in the prog / fusion band Solar Plexus in the early seventies.  Nilsson, on the other hand, was the keyboardist in Kornet and De Gladas Kapell and collaborated in some beautiful classics of Swedish prog like Vanspel (from the same year) with Coste Apetrea and Jukka Tolonen.   His playing is extremely precise, betraying a classical training, but progressively very inventive, and he is utterly at ease in all styles including pop and jazz.  So how could you go wrong with this 1979 collaboration between 2 luminaries of Swedish progressive music?  Well the only complaint I might have is when Tommy starts reciting poetry it reminds me a little too much of those neurotic Ingmar Bergman movies I saw too much of in the seventies with a half face superimposed on another half face (like this cover) as a woman is slowly dying of cancer and telling her mother how much she has hated her all her life and her husband is having an affair in the next room in the closet.  With her half-sister.

The music is similar to Nilsson's Music for music lovers but with the addition of vocals.  There are acoustic piano pieces, synthesizer songs, and there's even a bit of wonderful fusion thrown in at the end.  What is most amazing to me is the depth of imagination put into the songwriting efforts... these are absolutely not radio-friendly pop songs...  It's as if they had decided to write Schubertian songs for a concert hall in which the audience had an equal appreciation for classical music, jazz, and rock.
Have a listen to my sample tracks, A2 and B4. 



Not everyone will love this, but I hope some do, and spread the word.