Artist: Bjorn Olsson
Title: Self-Titled (The Lobster)
Label: Gravitation
Format: CD
Regular Price: $10.20

New album, fourth and final in the “seafood series” from founding guitarist for the incendiary 90s rock juggernaut Union Carbide Productions and our beloved retro-psych-rockers The Soundtrack of Our Lives…OR… How a study in folksy, filmic Scandinavian melancholy and spaghetti western strains = a likely contender for makeout record of the year.

This is Björn's fourth and final album in the “seafood series”, all of which are self-titled but rely on various shellfish to distinguish between them, so... The Lobster is a new album of instrumental melancholies (oh sure there’s some whistling and humming) from Gothenburg’s mystic laureate Björn Olsson, past guitarist for Union Carbide Productions and The Soundtrack of Our Lives (and even for one lovely album, The Bear Quartet) and extremely busy producer of Swedish bands. It contains seven completely new songs featuring Bjorn on acoustic guitar with subtle backing by comrades Pontus Ottestig and Johan Andersson. Somber songs with adventurous widescreen appeal. Gravitation label honcho Niclas Stenholm senses "an openness previously unheard. Maybe he’s found a bit of self-trust and musical conviction. In other words-a perfect moment to end a project like this quadruple journey!"

The CD ends with the entire album being looped at an increasingly lowered volume and treble until the physical end of the CD. This nearly hour-long track is called "Insomning" which in Swedish means "to fall asleep" until merely the simplest of melodies remain as the more-and-more-muted cycle devolves… And in the end, with volume and treble gradually skimmed away it becomes an entirely different record, a murky melodic haunting, spooky and sleepy and I reckon exactly how Bjorn intended.

Listen: Melodi I H-Moll • Låt I F#-Dur

Now a bit of history, because honestly in addition to his work with UCP and TSOOL you need to own this gentleman’s entire solo catalog…

Bjorn’s solo efforts began in 1999 with the ghostly, ethereal, and universally acclaimed Instrumentalmusik… released by Dolores in Sweden and Omplatten in the U.S. It was followed two years later by the somewhat perplexing but ultimately appealing UPA (The Shrimp), "A complex and vivid journey through Bacharach-inspired orchestral pop and soothing psychedelia." (Dusted Reviews). In 2003 The Crayfish was easily the whistling album of the year, Bjorn at his most hi-fi, truly epic in the most cinematic sense of the word. The Crab crawled forth in 2004, a slathering of lo-fi multi-track alchemy, including a few passages TSOOL fans might recognize outright, ghostly instrumental versions of a handful of early TSOOL classics.

What’s next for Bjorn Olsson now that the cycle is complete? Hopefully more albums like the five detailed here. But if I were to go out on a limb, pure conjecture mind you as I have nothing to base this theory upon, not even rumor and gossip, in fact purely my own delusional and wishful thinking, I’d say look for Bjorn and Ebbot Lundberg to reunite in some fashion. Put those two longtime friends in a room with a mic, an acoustic guitar, and a four track and I think something pretty magical would occur. A guy can dream can’t he???

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