Various

★★★

Swedish Pop & Beat 1963-1969

RIVERSIDE. CD

Unfiltered overview of the musical ecosystem which birthed ABBA.

The Nuggets of Swedish ’60s music was 1984’s Searching For Shakes, an eye and ear-opening primer of a fertile scene then little-known beyond Scandinavia. A key cut was 1965’s Words Enough To Tell You by Stockholm beat masters Mascots. Here, it crops up again on this literally titled 2-CD comp. Some other …Shakes bands also reappear with different, less edgy tracks: Namelosers, The Shakers, The Shanes, Tages. This is not a beat or Mod-centric comp though. Schlager rubs shoulders with novelties, harmony pop and so-so hit parade covers (such as Go Now, by Gothenburg’s Lucas), and all four members of ABBA feature in their early band or solo incarnations. This particularly Swedish take on the era’s homegrown pop is best taken as a primer on the formative context in which the future Eurovision winners operated.

Kieron Tyler

Various

★★★

1979: Revolt Into Style: 76 Year-Defining Tracks

CHERRY RED. CD

Anything goes in this attempt to document 1979’s burgeoning ind ie scene.

Seemingly selected by plucking random songs and acts out of a hat (or, more accurately, licensing vagaries), Revolt Into Style is a rather incoherent attempt to document 1979’s indie scene.There’s the genuinely obscure (Belfast’s Zipps; Bracknell’s Three Party Split), the chartfriendly (Madness, Clash, Human League) and revered titans (Joy Division, Teardrop Explodes, Magazine). Yet, what may seem like a glaring weakness is a great strength. The absence of any cohesion to the selection of individual tracks (Squeeze get the hit version of Up The Junction; Dexys a demo; Ian Dury & The Blockheads a minor album track) makes for a box of eclectic delights and discovery. If Jonnie & The Lubes’ I Got Rabies might have been better left in obscurity, The Passage’s Taking My Time is a reminder that they (and a handful of others) deserve reconsideration.

John Aizlewood

Complex

★★★

Live For The Minute: The Complex Anthology

ESOTERIC/CHERRY RED. CD/DL

The brief life of Blackpool psych-proggers whose 1971 debut goes for £ 10,000!

Steve Coe would later mastermind Monsoon’s 1981 sitar-fired hit Ever So Lonely, but 10 years earlier he was the organ-playing cowriting force behind Complex’s self-titled ‘demonstration record’ – just 99 copies pressed. Looking back, the band mis-read the market, and their timing was off. By 1971, organ-drenched psych pop was old hat, and it sat uneasily alongside such tracks as skalite Josie and cabaret oddity Mademoiselle Jackie. Second album The Way We Feel was equally scattershot, adding heavier rock and funk. It similarly failed to snare a label deal. Coe’s replacement Mike Proctor piloted 1972’s unreleased acetate that included covers of Theme From Shaft and By The Time I Get To Phoenix; 1973 demos attempted a glam/bubblegum makeover, again to no commercial avail. With this anthology,Complex’s fascinating, flawed saga finally gets aired.