March 16, 2010

Uber Weird Find: The Ballad of Glooscap!





So there are many reasons why this record is odd, but I do like the minimal DIY ambient synth atmosphere approach of Calle Ornemark's Ballad of Glooscap, the poetry I could do without but in small doses it adds a cool element I guess, as it is only on a few tracks, the real winners are the first track Birds of the Sky, with its minimal synth experimental ambiance that really warms the soul in a way, and then the 'rhythm' pieces which are a nod to John Cage as Calle is using a self-altered custom piano to produce strange rhythmic notes that echo out into a weird organic yet mechanical soundscape, the whole album is very trance inducing. The poetry tracks, (the 2 longest I left out of the rar because trust me you dont really want them), are mainly just Calle reading a really earthy mystical Native American style poem in Swedish, and then a female voice reads after him in English translating it sentence by sentence, again freakishly mesmerizing but a little kitschy/ campy I guess. I still am not totally sure what Calle the Swede was going for, my best guess is a pseudo native American homage slash earth prayer warning ala koyaanisqatsi double LP with John Cage like experimental piano etudes, and Klaus Schulze like synth atmosphere, and some Swedish poetry in between tracks. There is some interesting stuff to read when you wiki Glooscap, but I just don't see the Swedish connection. I could not find a date for the recording, but I am guessing about 1977-1985. There is to my knowledge not a single mention of this crazy double LP anywhere on the internet, zero zip nada, though I didn't deeply research Calle Ornemark because I figure the money potential for this kind of thing is never that strong, so I will just enjoy it's weird obscurity until I find something out. Despite all the description I gave it isn't going to floor you musically, but it is quite well done for being a DIY experimental/ambient album.

BALLAD OF GLOOSCAP

3 comments:

alphabet said...

Thanks!! I can't get enough of this blog.

transpac said...

Yall need to get up on that glooscap aight? Its fo real! If this link still works download it and tell me if it was worth the trouble, I'd really like to know if anyone else likes it.

Anonymous said...

He is really a great artist and has mainly made giganitic woodstatues.
He's on facbook and on youtube with videos i think ther is one when they performed glooscap.
http://sv-se.facebook.com/calle.ornemark
http://www.google.se/#q=calle+%C3%B6rnemark&hl=sv&safe=off&prmd=ivnso&source=lnms&tbm=vid&ei=cvOaTbaSBoqVOsHMxYIH&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=3&sqi=2&ved=0CBYQ_AUoAg&fp=19a62a366e7b248f