As a member of groups including
The Spacious Mind and Holy River Family Band, and now also as
a solo artist, Jens Unosson has been at the forefront of Swedish
independent music for a long time. Jens plays music that spans
psychedelic rock, progressive, dark ancient-sounding folk, free
improv, ambient and what used to be called fusion. Jens' unique
contributions to the various bands he plays with are characterized
by his spacey, ethereal keyboard work and his throaty, often whispered
vocals. With an extensive body of work to his credit, Jens' current
work is as vital as ever. The Spacious Mind's recently founded
label Goddamn I'm A Countryman Records has put out Jens' solo
album Standing In The Trees I Get Lifted By The Leaves
as well as two of The Spacious Mind's finest releases Live
Volume One: Do Your Own Thing But Don't Touch Ours and the
10" record Reality D. Blipcrotch. The live album captures
the band finding their second creative wind with an amazing set
of telepathic instrumental collaboration. 
The
10" features two new 15-minute songs and a hilarious comic
strip casting Jens as the '60s throwback Spacelord who needs to
be cajoled into playing new music. The comic goes on to trace
the fictitious rise and fall of the band's career and the imagined
fates of its members. Another current CD involving Jens that should
not be missed is the Holy River Family Band's limited-release
"Trio", a wonderful collection of improvisations
from the Earthquake Country sessions. Brooklyn label The
Wild Places put out this rare gem in an edition of 200. I had
the chance to meet some of the players in The Spacious Mind and
see the band's memorable set at Terrastock V in Boston last October.
This interview was conducted via e-mail during the winter of 2002-2003.
Nick Bensen: What first got you interested in becoming a musician?
Jens Unosson: It wasn't so much a wish to become a musician as
it was a wish to find a way of forming thoughts and feelings into
something more valid and lasting. This quest for artistic expression
included painting, drawing and writing, as much as music, and
except for painting I still work with all those forms. I really
don't consider myself a musician as such, music's just one way
of doing things that I feel an urgent need to do. As a whole though,
my life's much more immersed in music than it is with art or literature
- I read a lot, I closely study the old ink-artists, but I absolutely
revel in music. At its best, of course, all three go together
by way of wonderful cover art, beautiful lyrics and amazing music.
NB: Do you think that living in northern Sweden has had a particular
effect on the kind of music you make? Does the expansive sound
of your extended psychedelic journeys reflects the expansive wilderness
of the countryside?
JU: Not intentionally. It's likely, however, that the surroundings
that one grew up in and/or is currently living in will in some
way or the other come through in the music you make. I hear that,
or think I hear that, in other people's music, so it seems likely
that they will hear it in ours.
NB: What sorts of music do you listen to for your own enjoyment?
JU: Well, I'm heavily into the US West Coast/San Fran acid rock
sound of the late 60's, as well as folk psych and the so-called
loner/downer folk private press scene. I could list thousands
of bands and artists that I at various times of the day consider
to be the crown jewel of recorded music, but what I come back
to all the time is stuff like The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver,
Mad River, and folk things like Pearls Before Swine.
NB: I sense a high level of shared intuition in The Spacious Mind's
music. Before your amazing set at Terrastock 5, I observed the
band sitting silently around a table apparently meditating while
the other bands upstairs at The Axis reveled, joked among themselves,
and generally let off steam. Is the quiet time before a set intended
to heighten the focus for collective intuition during the performance?
JU: I can't say that this is something that we've decided between
us, you know, to sit down together before every gig in order to
tune our minds onto same wavelength. So at Terrastock it was pretty
much just coincidence that all of us felt the need to slow things
down for a while before we went on stage. Then again, it may well
have been that we all felt that this was an important gig that
we didn't want to blow by being unfocused. When I think about
it I do recall this happening in various ways before pretty much
all important gigs. It doesn't happen before local gigs in front
of thirty people though.
NB: The live album Do Your Thing But Don't Touch Ours seems
to document a magical experience. The music is so seamless and
has the feeling of moving along following its own divine patterns.
The rustic commune in Northern Sweden pictured inside the CD strikes
me as the perfect setting for such a performance. What was that
show like for you?
JU: In retrospect that particular gig was probably one of the
most important ones we've done. Only months before I had suggested
that we'd break up, since I felt we were being terribly dull -
there was no longer the feeling that we were moving forward in
what we're doing, and also we were drifting apart as a band. So
when we came to Skogsnäs we really didn't really expect much
from ourselves, it was just another gig and the only thing exciting
about it was the location. Anyway, the actual venue was so tiny
that we had to play really soft and thus the songs we'd intended
to play wouldn't do, at least not in the shape we usually played
them at that time. This was during our hardest period, with lots
of heavy riffing - that being another reason why I felt we no
longer should go on; I had never wanted this to be some pseudo
hard rock band - and we just had to think about it in a completely
different way. We talked about it for a bit, decided what we should
open with, and trusted the flow of things to carry us from there.
Afterwards it felt really good, and when listening back to the
cd-r some time later, it was such a relief to hear that it was
good, that we could actually do things with focus on the ethereal
stuff, with a gentle, drifting groove instead of the endless riffing.
Needless to say this lifted our general spirit quite a lot - we
felt for the first time in a long while that we were pretty good,
and that there were new roads ahead that we could try out.
NB: Does the otherworldly quality of your music ever translate
into strange or unexplainable experiences in the band members'
lives? It just feels like you are tapping into something very
powerful beyond reason.
JU: I don't know about the others, but speaking for myself I can't
say that that happens a lot. There's a little bit of magic in
all moments, but it's not something that I usually see or attend
to. I try to be open for the happenings just beyond my grasp,
and it's easier in certain places and moments than others, but
generally I don't see much of it, sad as it is.
NB: The Holy River Family Band track "Bear Mountain"
(from Ptolemaic Terrascope #31 and "Trios") is
one of my favorites. First of all, the title brings up positive
associations for me because Bear Mountain was the major peak near
where I grew up in New York and I enjoyed hiking in the area many
times as a child. More than that coincidence, the track combines
a keyboard part that distils what I loved about Nick Saloman of
The Bevis Frond's keyboard playing circa Triptych and the
guitars sound like a hyper-articulate version of Neil Young from
the early '70s. Did you have early Nick Saloman or Neil Young
in mind when doing "Bear Mountain" and, more generally,
how did that excellent track come into existence?
JU: When recording "Earthquake Country" we also rolled
the tape for a few jams on organ, bass, and drums. I think we
did five of them altogether, but the tape screwed up one of them,
and actually also a part of "Bear Mountain" though we
managed to cover that up in the final version. These were complete
jams growing from nothing, as we hadn't said a word about what
or how we were going to play. Afterwards me and Arne added some
electronics and guitars, as well as some effects, like the bells
towards the end of the "Bear" track. I'm glad that the
track, or its title, conjures images dear to you. As for the Bevis-thing,
this is something I've heard before, but I'm not in any way influenced
by his organ playing, it's more that none of us play very complex
things and occasionally have the same sort of lilting melody approach
to it. Likewise, I'd be surprised if Arne was thinking of Neil
Young when recording his guitar - he likes Neil, but I don't recall
him having ever cited him as an influence on his guitar playing.
NB: The breathy and low vocal style used on your solo album and
on some Holy River Family Band releases is unlike anything I've
heard elsewhere. How did that distinctive approach develop?
JU: Well, if I don't consider myself a musician, then even less
do I consider myself a vocalist. Basically I sing for a few hours
every three years, my technique is non-existent, my range is like
two notes, and I have absolutely no strength in my voice…I
can't even scream! But anyway, I think if one should listen to
the recorded vocals I've done, you'd see a sort of development
from trying to sing with a bit of strength on the earliest recorded
tracks on the second Holy River album, which resulted in some
sort of weirdly deep voice on some tunes, to finding a bit of
focus, stylewise, on the lastly recorded things on there. Then
I pretty much forgot about this until some years later when we
did "Earthquake Country", which again has a track or
two with that slightly stronger voice. But there are also other
tunes where I start to sound a bit more like I do on my solo album,
which is, I guess, what I'll sound like from now on unless I start
taking lessons and learn to use my voice like I should. I've sort
of grown to like what I do on my album, while I find most any
vocals on the Holy River albums very embarrassing. This has something
to do with how I wrote the tunes of course - the tunes for "Standing
In The Trees" were much more refined in their arrangements,
I had a very detailed concept as for how I wanted the tunes to
sound, the instrumental parts to be and put quite a lot of thinking
into how the vocals were going to sound, whereas when I present
a tune to Holy River it's much more open-ended, and the vocals
are not in focus as much.
NB: I am familiar with most of your musical projects (The Spacious
Mind, The Holy River Family Band, Cauldron and solo) but I have
not heard Gracious Pond. Could you describe Gracious Pond's sound?
While you're at it, how would you differentiate the individual
sounds of all of your bands and your solo work? Do they fill separate
creative needs for you?
JU: The Gracious Pond was, or maybe still is - we've been talking
about doing some new recordings - a duo consisting of myself and
Henrik from The Spacious Mind. We made a tape back in '94 called
"Wizards of Pond". I haven't heard it in ages, but actually
Henrik called me only a couple of days ago since he'd just found
a copy of it when moving. He read me the track titles and liner
notes and it was sort of fun, in a frightening way, to be confronted
with it again. We recorded the tape in his apartment on an eight-track,
I think, and basically what it was was one of us trying to play
while the other was fooling around with tons of effects, like
"c'mon, let's see how good you can play now!" before
turning all knobs to maximum effect. Not having heard it for years,
I think I recall some good moments on it…very deep, slowly
evolving space music.
I will take the opportunity here to elaborate a bit on the various
bands' music and how they've been received…I happen to feel
that there have been some unjustified comparisons made in the
past. The Spacious Mind to me is definitely the mothership, but
as such it's also the one I'm having most problems with. I'm not
always feeling like this, it changes all the time, but at the
moment I feel like we're this horribly stiff monster that moves
with the grace of a disabled dinosaur. I like playing live with
The Spacious Mind, but I'm not at all sure I like what I hear
when listening back to it. And as for our records it's pretty
much the same thing. There are moments on them that I really like,
but mostly what I hear is too calculated, too stiff, too heavily
epic. On the other hand that's how I feel about pretty much all
bands playing in a similar style to us. So, in a way I can say
that what we do is not bad taken for what it is, but I would like
it to be something else…it's so easy to create some spacey
sounds and then anyone who's ever listened to Ash Ra Tempel in
a darkened room will call it a masterpiece. And this is where
I feel these unjustified comparisons are being made - so many
people don't seem to realize that what Holy River have been trying
to do is something completely different - we're working with textures,
with small but much more subtle nuances, that would be completely
lost in the giant hands of The Spacious Mind. I'm not saying that
Holy River is necessarily producing the better music of the two,
in fact I much more often feel embarrassed at what we've done
than I do with The Spacious Mind, but when Holy River have been
successful in our attempts I feel it has much more value than
another epic space noodle session with The Spacious Mind. What
Holy River has been doing is much harder to do, but also, I think,
more interesting in all its consequential failures and occasional
brilliance.
And yes, you could say that the bands are filling different creative
needs for me. The part of The Spacious Mind that I enjoy are the
live performances, the adventures that may happen on a good night.
That was also true for The Brotherhood Of Eternal Love. Holy River
Family Band and Cauldron are completely different, as I said,
with other ambitions. Cauldron is by far the one I'm enjoying
the most. I think that me and Arne have a very nice flow to what
we do, there's never any sort of competitive feelings getting
in the way, or any of the usual musicians' crap. We're just having
a good time being creative, and talking a bit, and it's all happening
in a very relaxed, natural way. It was pretty obvious that he'd
be the one I'd work with on my solo album as well - he knows where
I'm heading and we have this very smooth musical dialogue that
makes it all go along so gentle compared to other musical situations
that I'm involved in.
NB: Which of the songs you have recorded are the most satisfying
to you personally?
JU: Most of the albums I've been on I haven't heard in ages, and
it's likely that should I listen to them now I'd mention completely
different tracks. But as for The Spacious Mind, the entire first
album remains a bit special. I also like "Interplanetarian
Lovemachine pt II" and "Time Re-Circle" off the
second one, as well as some parts on the live-cd that I think
are very good. And "The Drifter" off the 10" is
nice. I think the first Holy River is ok, though I'd like to remix
the last track since I think it doesn't have the punch it could
have. The second one is so uneven, but I like "Peyote Visions",
"Star Tree And The Death Of Flowers" and some others
as well. On "Earthquake Country" I like the jamming
parts on the longer tracks - those are excellent, I think, and
by far the best we've ever done. Plus, I like "The Nose Tree"
very much. Cauldron is one I like in its entirety, and that's
rare. Which leaves me with my solo album, and I really didn't
think I'd be feeling like this, but I must say it's my favourite.
I'm very pleased with it, as it came out pretty much as I had
envisioned it to. Saying so might reveal me as having nothing
but a giant ego, but at least I'm being truthful about it.
Thanks to Jens for doing the interview. For more information,
contact countrymanrecords@hotmail.com.
Interview © 2003 by Jens Unosson and Nick Bensen.