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.