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Title:  Verklighet & Beat Artist:  Eric Malmberg Label:  Hapna Format:  CD Price:  € 13.40   Mp3 samples:   1

Title Description:
Eric MalmbergÕs music is a small miracle.

I donÕt want to call him a genius, because I donÕt want to jinx him. But I will say that heÕs a complete original, in addition to being a vastly talented musician. I will also say that his recordings and the two performances that I saw by Sagor & Swing merit a place on a short list of most enjoyed musical experiences of the last half decade.Ê I could bleat about the quality of the work, but most enjoyed to me carries the stronger charge.

Verklighet & Beat, meaning Reality & Beat (as opposed to Sagor & Swing: Fairytales and Swing), is a second high point in Eric MalmbergÕs career. The first came with 2001Õs OrgelfŠrger, the first album by Sagor & Swing. S & S were the duo of Eric on his beloved Hammond organ and Ulf Mšller on sympathetic, timeless drums. The obvious comparison was to Hansson & Karlsson, the Swedish organ and drums duo from the 1970s. Indeed, Eric is the author of a number of comic books detailing the adventures of Hansson & Karlsson. (HeÕs also the author of the comic Happy Hammond in Slumberland.) Bo Hansson returned the favor by giving him an organÑas well as by appearing on synthesizer on Verklighet & Beat.

OrgelfŠrger came out of a clear blue sky. A brisk, chilly blue sky over a kind of stubbornly verdant rural landscape that I can easily picture but have never actually seen. It charmed by seemingly having zero connection to its era. A Hammond-whirlpool of minor-key melodicism. A snare, a brush, a mellower Mitch Mitchell. A sense with each new composition of starting back from the same place, of getting exquisitely lost in the woods each time, differently. Eleven songs, eleven paths. Listening to this album again, I canÕt imagine how it could be improved. (Do I have to spell it out?Ê Time on this planet is brief. If you havenÕt heard OrgelfŠrger or the follow-up Melodier och fŒglar, you need to be taking better care of yourself.)

Sagor & Swing reminded you that the Hammond organ was once a medieval instrument.

All of which brings us to Verklighet & Beat. Sagor & Swing disbanded after four albums, and this is EricÕs second solo release. The first, Den gŒtfulla mŠnniskan, finds Eric alone at the Hammond, with the occasional desolate rhythm-box accompaniment. Verklighet & Beat is an entirely different animal, a beautifully arranged and fully realized vision of how to present EricÕs music.

Verklighet & Beat has two obvious hits. Till minne av Lilly Lindstršm is the albumÕs effortless high-water mark in providing instrumental coloration for what had previously been implied by EricÕs bare-bones melodies.Ê Are those guitar strings fifty years old? Sleigh bells havenÕt sounded so good since the first Stooges album. Then the descending disco strings carve up the dance floor. A tip of the hat to producer/musician Jari Haapalainen. The other surefire smash in the Top 40 of my mind or dreams is Sšndagskonsert, which holds its own when compared to the most moving of Peer RabenÕs scores for films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Verklighet & Beat suggests that an impeccably programmed movie theater has opened in EricÕs neck of the woods.

Vital Review: