Iskra

condition (records/cover): NM / EX+ (minimal edges wear)

Gatefold sleeve.

Iskra took its name, and its cover, from the newspaper Lenin founded in 1900, and one of the four sides is a twenty-seven-minute piece called Iskra 1900. The Stockholm group recorded most of this double album in its own rehearsal room in February and April 1975; Tarmstadt and Blodstörtning come from a concert at the Fasching club that July, in a summer series shared with the bands Vargavinter and Spjärnsvallet.

The five musicians, Tuomo Haapala, Arvid Uggla, Sune Spångberg, Allan Olsson and Jörgen Adolfsson, play saxophones, double bass, tuba, vibraphone and percussion, but also cow horn, slide banjo, bowed mandolin and kantele, ocarina, amadinda and bird calls. Their free improvisation sits next to a Swedish folk tune and a closing Avanti Popolo. It appeared on Caprice in the Jazz i Sverige '75 series, with an interview titled "Is this jazz?" printed in the first copies.