Short Reviews [Akasha - 1977 - "Akasha"]

Here we have an underground album which was released back in 1977 and has now been made available on CD by a crowdfunded label run by Norwegian celebrity Christer Falck. Having looked through the site there certainly appears to be a demand for these rare items, and it is always nice to discover one which is worth hearing for its musical value and not just its rarity. This has been reissued in multiple forms over the years (including on CD by the excellent label APM back in 1995, not sure how I missed that one), and this version is in a gatefold sleeve with information in English and a page in Norwegian – I can’t say now much of this is new or was contained on the original. One thing I did see was that this is taken from a vinyl rip as opposed to the original tapes, which I presume are lost to time, and one wonders if that has something to do with the muddiness of the sound which obviously could not be cleaned up from that source. Musically here we have a band heavily influenced by the likes of Emerson, Lake and Palmer with an affinity for The Moody Blues and experimentation which takes them into the realm of Hawkwind, but with far less heaviness and guitar. The line-up was Sverre Svendsen (vocals, Mellotron), Kjell Evensen (drums), Arild Andreasson (bass) and Jens-Ivar Andreassen (guitar, Mellotron, synths, piano, organ). It sounds not as if was coming from just after the height of prog, but much more as if it is from the early days when no-one was quite sure what they were doing and instead were looking in different areas as they attempted to create their own sound. The vocals are not as strong as they could be, and while they are in English, it is the music which one is most drawn towards. Interestingly, there is only one lengthy track on the album, opener “Isle of Kawi” which is a little more than 11 minutes long, but it is when the band have the opportunity to stretch their musical wings that they have the chance to shine. By 1977 the world was starting to crash in on the prog scene, so to find a local label in Norway who were prepared to put this out is quite something, and that it has been crowdfunded for a reissue nearly 50 years later is also quite special. It may not be a definitive prog release, but it is interesting all the same and one can only wonder what this band would have achieved if this had been released 5 years earlier.