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When Hans Lundin teamed up with his
good friend Roine Stolt again in order to record the album “Notes
from the past” virtually everyone thought it concerned a pure
one-off. The amount of positive reviews got Lundin thinking.
Meanwhile the contract with Musea would soon expire and Inside Out
had shown an interest to re-release Kaipa’s first three albums in
remastered form and including bonustracks. These bonustracks might
be pulled from the three singles the band released or include tracks
from the band’s forth and fifth album “Händer” and “Nattdjurstid”
who never got released on CD in their own right. The sudden interest
in Kaipa plus the fact that Lundin could enlist some great musicians
gave him extra energy to continue delivering outstanding music under
the moniker of Kaipa.
As on “Notes from the past” Ritual
singer Patrik Lundström steps forward as being the band’s leadsinger
although we should also mention Aleena whose rather naïve sounding
voice blends ever so well with the Mellotron during ‘A complex work
of art’. By adding drummer Morgan Ägren, who used to play with
Zappa, and bassplayer Jonas Reingold the band fuses some jazz
references into their original music. The music of the current Kaipa
still is based around the same parameters like in their early days
so do expect a fair amount of pure seventies sounds and tons of
analogue keys. Next to the elaborate arrangements you can also
expect a lot of rhythm changes and breaks. The latter often offer
synchronised bass and drums which delivers a very powerful drive. In
fact Kaipa in this new century has no problem at all to even include
eastern influences as during ‘Sonic pearls’. Or to hit those chords
a little harder as during ‘End of the rope’ where we also witness
some Canterbury moments. The nice thing with Kaipa is that although
they have two outstanding singers in the band they still deliver
lengthy instrumental passages. The passage where Roine’s high
pitched guitar blends with Lundin’s Hammond organ simply is
wonderful whilst the craftmanship of Morgan Ägren becomes very clear
here. Also Stolt’s slide guitar rules as well as his subtle fragile
solo’s.
Originally launched in the glorious seventies no doubt the mighty
Mellotron gets a special place in the history of Kaipa. On this new
album it gets a prominent place in the intro for ‘Across the big
uncertain’ which also sports some superb fretless bass from Jonas
Reingold next to the wonderful melodies. ‘Distant voices’ changes
from Yes-like structures to pure improvisation where Reingold’s bass
sounds almost like authentic Squire ! The album closes with one of
the most powerful guitarsolo’s on the album backed with tons of
Mellotron. A proof of Kaipa’s status as one of the purest symphonic
outfits. The nice thing about this album is the fact that it’s
rather different than “Notes from the past” yet it sounds like
authentic Kaipa throughout. This kind of means that the band has
once again put it’s recognizable stamp onto the music yet has broken
new ground as well. Especially in the rhythm section the band now
tends to rub shoulders with jazz and fusion without making it too
obvious. It’s that constant weaving of different styles which
finally creates the “Keyholder”. |
