PREGNANT RAINBOW FOR COLOURBLIND PEOPLE, THE ESSENCE OF SWEDISH PROGRESSIVE MUSIC 1967 - 79

This 4-CD anthology on Swedish prog 1967-1979 is an excellent package in many ways. In fact, I don't know any similar attempt to give such thorough and precise picture of the prog scene of one particular country, in a particular time limit. Or if I have come across such things, surely none of them have been done so well.

It would be an interesting research to see how many of the bands/artists of this box are undeservedly not (yet) in ProgArchives. I believe there are several! Naturally many of them are very rare and have a limited output (sometimes narrowed down to a single single), but despite that fact, this box is a perfect thing for anyone who wants to dig deeper into the early Swedish prog. Which indeed has a unique character. If that uniqueness is heard already by listening to just a few classics of Swedish prog, this compilation only deepens that idea.

I'm not going into details, here's just some of the more known bands: KAIPA, BO HANSSON, KEBNEKAJSE, MADE IN SWEDEN, SAMMLA MAMMAS MANNA, ÄLGARNAS TRÄDGÅRD... What's very wise of this box, these "bigger" acts are not given more room than the rest. The goal clearly has been to give as full picture as can be given within four discs. Any imaginable sub-genre is present, be it Psychedelia, Jazz-Rock, Symphonic... Take you pick. OK, one thing COULD be more user-friendly: one hears no notable differences between the CD's, whereas it would have been nice to try to categorize contents somehow. It doesn't even run chronologically, which would also be a suitable way to do it.

The texts are very inormative, and everything about the package is edited tastefully. This box is a sort of successor to a book on Swedish prog.