I thought you guys might be interested in taking a listen to the first and only studio recording of Sörskogen, the 70' s prog style side project featuring Mikael Åkerfeldt of Opeth and Dan Swanö of half of everything ever.

It sounds to me like a more modern Camel.

Sörskogen - Mordet i Grottan


PS: Apparently, a lot of Sörskogen material has turned into the material for Damnation, the forthcoming mellow Opeth album. So think of this track as a teaser for the new Opeth!

And to quote Dan Swanö, " Damnation is the best thing since Orchid."


EDIT: Anyone who knows Swedish and wants to translate, it would be very cool It' s strange hearing Mikael sing in Swedish! What does Sörskogen mean?

" Brooks is always right of course..." - dabby
" If you are flammable and have legs, you are NEVER blocking a fire exit." - Mitch Hedburg

DOWN FACTOR - MURDER THE WORLD October 200million

so this is the only song from Sörskogen Brooks? i think this fuckin rocks! i' d love to hear the rest of the CD if there is one. Where have i heard Dan Swano from? he sounds awfully familiar

Dimmerswitch

Most likely Ayreon, my boy.
I did say MOST likely before anyone pounds me.

Actually Erik Norlander and Clive Nolan recorded the majority of the keyboards on the Ayreon albums. found some information on Dan Swano, for people like me who aren' t familiar with this guy...apparently, his music is like death metal, with 70' s prog influences with all those good mini moog kind of goodness. sounds interesting! love to hear his sfuff. apparently, he' s played with Nightingale, Edge of Sanity, Pan-thy Monium, and Godsend. never heard of any of those bands..

http://www.ssmt-reviews.com/list/swano.htm

http://www.bnrmetal.com/groups/swan.htm

Dimmerswitch

I think he did 1/3 of the vocals on the Star One project, as wellas some vocals on Ayreon' s Universal Migrator Pt.2

ah yeah you' re right. he is on the Star One cd. but he isn' t on Flight of the Navigator, or the Dream Sequencer

Dimmerswitch

Wow, that' s odd...
I was confusing Damian Wilson and Dan, sorry.

Hey this stuff is pretty damned good! Now I' m looking even more forward to the Damnation album!

-Prog rock is when your fans say " you' d need to be a musician to
understand this music" and other people say " you' d need to be a retard to
buy it."

this song has been out for like 2-3 years if I remmeber correctly

ORIGINAL: Shaunny

Actually Erik Norlander and Clive Nolan recorded the majority of the keyboards on the Ayreon albums. found some information on Dan Swano, for people like me who aren' t familiar with this guy...apparently, his music is like death metal, with 70' s prog influences with all those good mini moog kind of goodness. sounds interesting! love to hear his sfuff. apparently, he' s played with Nightingale, Edge of Sanity, Pan-thy Monium, and Godsend. never heard of any of those bands..

http://www.ssmt-reviews.com/list/swano.htm

http://www.bnrmetal.com/groups/swan.htm

Okay, here' s the verdict on Dan Swano :

- In metal circles, he is probably best known as front man for Edge of Sanity. These guys started out making pretty ordinary death metal, but towards his departure from that band, Dan the Man managed to mix more progressive elements into their sound already. If you have a stomach for death metal vocals and if you like Opeth, you are obliged to get their EP Crimson. It is a 40 minute one song (how prog can you be ) epic, which is just absolutely brilliant. A mix between grunts and clean vocals, many recurring themes throughout the disc, guest vocals by Mikael Akerfeldt, this one just has it all.

- Then after leaving Edge of Sanity, he released one solo disc under his own name in 1998, called Moontower. This is a brilliant album, too. It breathes a 70s atmosphere, loads of atmospheric keyboards, but (and trust me, it works somehow) mostly death metal vocals.

- Then he has this band on the side with his brother (artist name Tom Nouga) called Nightingale. I only have their latest called " I" and I love it. Really relaxed, sometimes emotional music, clean vocals, more rock than metal oriented. Early next year a new album comes out.

- Then he indeed performed vocal duties on Arjen Lucassen' s Star One project. His performance on Starchild (based on the 2001: A Space Odyssey flick) is one of my favourites ever.

- I don' t have any of his other projects' albums, e.g. Panthymonium, but I guess it is safe to say that this guy is one of the most multi-talented guys in the music scene these days. He is a multi-instrumentalist, one of the only guys that has a proper clean voice and an understandable grunt at the same time (Akerfeldt being the other one), and during the nineties he did a few brilliant production jobs in his own Unisound studio.

End of lecture . Anyway, my version of it, you can probably get much more accurate statements on his home page.

By the way, check out the Satan Stole My Teddybear link Shaunny provided above. This is one of the most complete review sites in metal I know. Perfect data base to get the ins and outs of bands you are interested in.

" It' s always funny until someone gets hurt...
And then it' s just hilarious!"
(Faith no More - Ricochet)

thanks for the info proger!

and i just realized that Dan Swano also played drums on Bloodbath, the death metal project with Mikael(Opeth). i rather enjoy those two discs!

Dimmerswitch

Oh yeah man, that is just a metal dream band in itself. Other than Swano and Akerfeldt they feature Jonas Renske and the guitarist (name slips my mind) from Katatonia, another highly underrated Scandinavian band. Haven' t heard them yet, since they are making really old school Swedish death metal for fun, but I might just take a peek/hear.

" It' s always funny until someone gets hurt...
And then it' s just hilarious!"
(Faith no More - Ricochet)

Bloodbath is actually more of a tribute to the early 90' s American Death Metal scene.


Swanö also produced Opeth' s Morningrise, which gives him instant God status

" Brooks is always right of course..." - dabby
" If you are flammable and have legs, you are NEVER blocking a fire exit." - Mitch Hedburg

DOWN FACTOR - MURDER THE WORLD October 200million