Parson Sound: Music Pioneers of the Swedish Vanguard

In 1968 Andy Warhol invited an experimental rock group to open for his exhibition “Screens, Films, Boxes, Clouds and a Book.” at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm. Warhol had always shown a keen aptitude for identifying musically forward-thinking artists  (cf. The Velvet Underground), and when he chose Parson Sound to perform its avant-rock compositions as a prelude to his show it was no different. Formed in 1966 by Bo Anders Persson, a student of music at the Royal Academy Hall who had become disillusioned by the sterile tenor of his academic environment and who decided to form a group that would fuse minimal structures of classical music to a rock idiom and combine all this with an emphasis on euphoric states in live performance. By 1968 Parson Sound had already achieved a notoriety in Swedish circles as a compelling avant force and as such became an apt choice for Warhol’s filmic art exhibition.

Parson Sound was created in 1966 after Persson attended a performance of Terry Riley’s minimal masterpiece “In C,” an event that changed the course of his life and by extension the Swedish underground music scene of the time. They are a group who sonically share the sensibilities of early kraut rock pioneers like Amon Duul and Kraftwerk but are relatively unknown outside collector enclaves due to the rarity and primitive nature of the recordings. Although historically they were just as innovative as Can or Faust with their focus firmly ensconced on the free and heavy exploration of sonic possibilities, their music failed to reach the masses in much the same way as they never got the chance to record in a proper studio. In this sense, they share the same terrain that is occupied by Les Rallizes Denudes, a Japanese psychedelic super group whose music is also very hard to find (the only recordings available are of their live performances). But this does not diminish the brute force and majesty of the music these pioneers created . Instead it raises their estimation in potential. If a band was so good that they become cult figures just around sub-par recordings of their live performances one can only imagine what could have happened had they ever been able to engage a proper studio.

In placing Parson Sound along a historical map, one must realize that the music they were making was two full years ahead of the bands that they most resemble, namely Amon Duul and Ash Ra Tempel. I credit the prescient nature of their sound to the way in which drone and minimalism played a part in the architectural framing of their song structures.  Repetition and circular form are used as either numbing or awakening devices, and underscore the mechanics of departure and arrival within the lexicon of their musical typography. This is psychedelic rock, but it firmly eschews all the blues or American derived musical idioms that many bands who are associated with the psych moniker tend to exhibit. The geography that Parson Sound inhabits is more in line with modern classical music ( Riley, Reich, Stockhausen) and with the tonal structure of the ethnic music of India and Southeast Asia, such as raga or gamelan. As someone who exhausted the seminal Nuggets compilations during his teens, and who for a long time was exposed to psych via bands like the Electric Prunes and 13th Floor Elevators, listening to Parson Sound for the first time was a revelatory experience.

“From Tunis To India in Full Moon (on testosterone),” a track that spans 20 minutes and whose amplified cello ostinato serves as a backdrop for a voyage into harsh soundscapes replete with thundering drums and winding violin and flute passages; this piece is an accurate barometer of what a listener can expect from their music. The term “grower” is used usually to describe an album or piece of music that promises to reveal subtle and hidden aural pleasures over time and in the case of Parson Sound, this is the only way to approach their music — as it tallies with the process whereby the music came into itself.

Critics have noted the shamanistic streak in the music of Parson Sound and it’s an assessment I tend to agree with. The improvisatory and communal, almost incantatory, approach to musical experience along with the focus on exploring the outer reaches of the psyche via a spiritual response to sound and the immediate environment definitely shares a resonance with the shamanistic/orgiastic/Delphic states that have been documented throughout history. The phrase “We, Here, Now” was a key manifesto of Parson Sound’s ethos; as they were obstinate that the performance, the location, and the moment was to dictate the direction of the music and nothing else. These elements of the group were fabric to the zeitgeist of the 60’s but they were also impelled forward by the contributions of poet/vocalist Thomas Tidholm, a member whose influence was palpable in its more esoteric affectations. “Tio Minuter,” is a song that has one one of the most darkly arresting breakdowns in rock music, full of lowly slung bass and a caterpillar drum loop that gives way to the Tidholm effect. As the breakdown creeps towards the end Tidholm’s harmonized poetic chants wrap themselves around the sound as opposed to over it, it is a device that deploys voice and word as an associative synergistic force that deepens the tone of the piece by thickening and expanding the texture of its pulse.

Overall, the music that has been documented with the original Parson Sound members is of very high quality and loses none of its verve over different tracks. Members of the original group went on to form highly influential Swedish offshoots like International Harvester or Trad Gras Och Stenar, all incredible bands that amped up the musicality of the initial tendencies that exist in those early recordings. The reputed Swedish label Subliminal Sounds has just issued a limited edition complete package which includes all these highly coveted recordings into a 3LP boxset. First encountering this music over 10 years ago, it still sounds fresh to the ears — unlike many of the psych bands from that era. Perhaps it is their insistence on a universal sonic language or on the enlivened musical states that has kept their sound vital. Either way, it is a piece of music history not be missed.