Wednesday, 28 October 2020

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



3 comments:

  1. I threw in the prior albums mostly with Coste Apetrea, viz., Nyspolat (1977), De Gladas Kapell (1978) and Vanspel (1979) which you probably don't need, nor necessarily does anybody.
    https://www.sendspace.com/file/if96kr
    https://www88.zippyshare.com/v/lJkmN8H1/file.html

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, great albums! Please reup korberg/nilsson blixtlas 1979
    Thx again;)

    ReplyDelete