THE PECULIAR SOUNDS OF PETER SCION: A NEWCOMER'S INTRODUCTION (1989-2005)

With so many albums of mine available here, you might find it hard to decide what to download unless you're already familiar with my music. Therefore I have compiled an album of 2CD's length covering every album I've made, including group efforts from Modryn, Continental Soul Searchers, and Pangolin.

It's always hard to make compilations of your own work, and my opinion is that the artists themselves rarely are the best persons to decide what material is appropriate to include. Had someone else put together a Peter Scion "best of" or "introduction" styled album, it might have looked very different. I have however tried to shed light on as many different styles I thought necessary, why this introduction swings wildly from dark folk to country music to heavy rock to... Well, you get the point. However, this isn't meant to be a cohesive album, just the introduction the title suggests.

For quick download, it's available only in slightly lesser quality mp3's. If you have an irresistable urge to get this music in better quality after messing up your mind with these selections, I humbly advise you to choose the regular albums.

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DEVACHAN (Peter Scion 1997)

After a few musical miscarriages, "Devachan" came to me as my firstborn album. As my debut, it will always have a special place in my heart. It also seems to me that this is the record of mine that people like the most.

I have to thank my dear friend Christer Bäckhage for setting this weird thing into motion. After hearing some of my earlier recordings, he suggested that I should go all the way and try to make something more psychedelic. That pulled the plug. Or rather, that broke the levee. As soon as I started recording, I couldn't tape enough songs. It took only a week to finish the entire album, but more songs were coming which eventually made up the two albums that followed it.

Whether "Devachan" is psychedelic or not is up to other people to decide, but it was definitely a trip into my own mind at the time. Listening to it is listening to someone slightly lost in and baffled by his own creativity, somewhere between a slightly uncomfortable past and an unknown future. And so "Devachan" is the perfect title for the album. The word is Sanskrit for the place where the soul dwells after death but before rebirth. That's where you found me as an artist in early 1997.

The name "Scion" came from a headline in a British music magazine (and not from the Ian Matthews song that some have believed). I liked the meaning of it although I was a bit uncomfortable with its sound to begin with. But the name stuck, and soon I was as much the Scion persona as I was the ordinary, everyday me. Actually, when I became Peter Scion I became more of my real self, because Peter Scion could say things I couldn't.

Before my friend Lars Holmquist founded the "kitchen table label" Domestica (simply because he thought the album was so good that he wanted it out in some way, even if he had to do it himself), I sent out a tape with a three track selection to various record labels in Europe. I got only one reply, a year or so later. I can't remember now who from, but he had suddenly found the tape behind a shelf, forgetting he had recieved it in the first place. Now he had listened to it, and was interested in releasing "Devachan" on his label. "Sure," I wrote to him. I never heard from him again.

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TREE MUSIC (Peter Scion 1997)

I can't remember really how "Tree Music" came about. From what I recall now, it just seemed to happen. After "Devachan", I kept recording, and I suddenly had enough material to fill a 90 minute tape. About half of that material was structured as "The Amethyst Dream". At one point, Lars at Domestica and I talked about releasing "The Amethyst Dream" together with "Devachan" as a box set of sorts including "Tree Music". The idea was scrapped, but suddenly we had another album ready for release. "Tree Music" and "The Amethyst Dream" were released simultaneously.

The odd thing about "Tree Music" is that it seems to have a theme of its own. All the songs deal, in one way or another, with nature. The unintentional concept album! It is also by far the strangest album of mine, with "Willow Moon" being the off-beat centrepiece. (And off tune too for that matter...) There's also a new version of "These Darkened Trees" which is the perfect example of how not to make a record. I had just bought myself a cheap sitar, and with fearlessness bordering on sheer stupidity, I decided to play a very long solo on said sitar. I also turned it up pretty loud in the mix, so that no-one would miss it... Those were the days! Anyway, this arrangement (bar the sitar!) became the foundation for subsequent takes on the song, including the one with Pangolin.

This is indeed one freak of an album, and perhaps that's an appeal of its own. At least one person I know has cited "Tree Music" as his favourite Peter Scion album... Another friend of mine had a good laugh when he heard "The Flower of My Secret Garden" for the first time. "What a freaky song!" he said, probably with equal parts of joy and fear... "Tree Music" seems to generate odd reactions.

The album cover was a shameless tribute to the ESP Disk' aesthetics. I love the homemade feel of their covers; that simple, stark black and white look that seemed to signal an urge to express oneself. I could easily relate to that, and although I no longer make music myself, I still can.

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THE AMETHYST DREAM (Peter Scion 1997)

My third album was my personal favourite for a while, and I still like how it works cyclical, like an eternity sign. The last track "The Garden" (featuring Carita Forslund on flute) spiritually connects with the opening track, the likewise instrumental "Spring Fair Tune". The title track, also instrumental, is placed in the middle: the point where everything meets. When choosing the songs for "The Amethyst Dream", I tried to make it an album that you could listen to at a low volume, almost like an ambient album. However, tracks such as "Death Comes From The Sky" is a far cry from your typical ambient styled music!

The cover shot was taken by my inspirational mentor and close friend Christer Bäckhage. There was a small deserted garden not far from where I lived, and I decided it would be a perfect place for some posing. Luckily, I'm not seen clearly on the cover, more like a shadow emerging from the dark. I actually hate pictures of myself, and it would take a good while until I decided to have a proper portrait of myself on an album cover.

They have now ruined the deserted garden by building an ugly house there. (Sometimes, reality is very harsh.) They left the small stone steps (on which I sit) leading up to the garden though, but the magic of the place is gone.

"The Amethyst Dream" is the final part of what works like a trilogy, preceeded by "Tree Music" and "Devachan". The intention was never to create a cycle of albums, but "The Amethyst Dream" somehow seems to finish what "Devachan" started.

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SWEET SORROW MAN (Peter Scion 1997)

"Sweet Sorrow Man" seemed to surprise many of my listeners. After three albums of folk psych, I suddenly turned to country music! However, it's not a fullblown country album, but the influence is definitely there. Mick Capewell, who interviewed me for UK mag Ptolemaic Terrascope, dubbed it "Country & Northern", and that is quite possibly the best description I've heard of it.

To me, however, the change wasn't that sudden at all. I had listened a fair bit to country music and traditional American songs for some while before I recorded "Sweet Sorrow Man". After all, American traditional music isn't that far removed from the folk songs of the British Isles, which only a slightly closer history examination reveals. And as I, as an artist, worked by the principle "what goes in must come out", it was simply impossible not to react creatively to what I was listening to. "Broken" was even a song that I had wanted to write for a long time, and I was very happy to eventually find myself in the right mind to do it. Oh, and I'm very proud of my rendition of "Kathleen", which I still think is among my Top 3 recordings.

The re-working of "Is It Raining In Seattle?" (originally on "Devachan") was great fun to do. I don't know what really instigated another version of it; perhaps did I sense some country feel in it that would slip in nicely with the rest of the album. It was all first takes to keep the "devil may care" attitude intact in the finished version, as if there were four people getting together for the first time busking a song they roughly knew from a long time ago.

Although there are a couple of tongue-in-cheek moments on "Sweet Sorrow Man", I never meant to poke fun at a musical style I still like very much. It was all very lovingly done, and when listening to the album today, I realize it's my emotionally most diverse album up to that date. Good times rub shoulders with utter desperation, and in that respect, "Sweet Sorrow Man" is a very human album.

As I wrote in my liner notes for the album, "Sweet Sorrow Man" was originally percieved as an EP. But I was still riding high on the creative wave, so soon I had an album's worth of material that seemed to go together pretty well.

Lars Holmquist did the cover for the album without much of my participation. One day when I went to see him, he showed the finished artwork. I immediately accepted it, saying "I'd love to buy an album looking like that!".

I still like this album very much.

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SHROUD SONG (Peter Scion 1998)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED (sort of)

This is a curiousity in every way.

First of all, it was recorded during a week of fasting - voluntary food depravation. The opinions on fasting differ vastly depending on who you ask, and I won't go into the pros and cons of it. I will say though that all your senses sharpen while fasting, and I assume it's a way for the body to say "hey, if I sharpen your hearing and better your sight, will you go out to hunt down some food for me, you lazy bugger!". Listening to music while fasting has often been a fascinating experince to me, but it wasn't until "Shroud Song" that I actually recorded music under the influence of the practice.

The result was "Shroud Song", which is an altogether completely different thing to anything I had ever done before. There are no songs on it; the entire album is instrumental (which should come as a relief to those of you who can't stand my vocals!) and owes a fair bit to the "kosmische musik" seeping from the German kraut rock scene in the 70's.

That might be a reason why I didn't pay much attention to it right after I finished it. It was all done in a couple of days, two, perhaps three. It was all improvised. Compared to my previous albums, even at their spaciest, it's an outsider. When finished, I put the tape among other tapes and didn't think of it a lot until I pulled it out and made a copy for Lars at Domestica. Lars loves German kraut rock, and "Shroud Song" had him firing on all cylinders. We were discussing a potential release, but in the end we dropped it. I can't remember why.

Around this time, a Peter Scion website was set up. The website is basically dead now, with no updates being made after I withdrew from playing. Anyway, through the website, two albums were released in the short-lived "Archive Series". One of them comprised outtakes and rehearsals, whereas the second volume was "Shroud Song". "The Archive Series" was made in an extremely limited edition of 30 copies and given away free to website visitors and members of various music forums on the internet.

The history of "Shroud Song" is indeed obscure, but I'm delighted to present it to you here.

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STRANGE INCONVENIENCES (Peter Scion 1998)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

I suppose any artist with a back catalogue exceeding the number of three albums have some "Great Lost Album" lying around somewhere in the rubble. I guess this one would be mine, although it might be rather "lost" than "great"! But seriously, I do have a fondness for "Strange Inconveniences". I like the songs, I play around with the arrangements (using banjo for instance), and it's good to hear my long time friend Carita Forslund sing for the first time on one of my albums. Carita has, as far as I know, given up music just like me, but she used to be a very, very talented songwriter in her own right, although her recordings remain unreleased to this day. A great pity, but a good thing that she wanted to work with me as a flautist (on "Tree Music" and "Devachan") as well as a singer (on the track "Cold Ground" from this very album).

"Strange Inconveniences" was shelved because not long after the sessions, I formed rock band Pangolin, and since they immediately became my main focus, I didn't want any solo album to interfere with the band activities. I do think that the album was good enough to release though, why it is a relief of sorts to finally have it out, if "only" as a download.

I projected several versions of "Strange Inconveniences", changing a song here, adding another there. The version here drops an early, and not very thoroughly realized acoustic take of the Pangolin number "Poisoned River To Her Heart", in favour of "Sounds of the Space Age". I'd say that this is the most definitive version of the album.

"Sounds of the Space Age" was recorded at the end of the sessions, and was an all electronic experiment combining the sounds of an old, wonderfully cheesy organ with a built-in rhythm machine, with phrases primitively sampled from a National Geographic flexi disc celebrating the first steps on the moon. I had no idea whatsoever how the samples would work together with the backing track - I couldn't hear what I was doing due to the technical limitations of the 4 track machine I was using. So I had to trust luck and chance, and I must unashamedly say they were both on my side this time. I love this recording so much, and I don't care if no-one agrees with me! You might say it's totally off compared to the rest of the album, but I say it isn't. It reflects the playfulness that defined my approach to the whole recording session.

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SOMBRE TRUST (Peter Scion 1999-2000)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

When I searched through my closet, I found a box full of tapes with hours and hours of unreleased material. Among those tapes I found an entire unreleased album that I had more or less forgotten about. Truth is, it was just a pile of songs that I recorded some time in-between "Through My Ghost" and "Sister Songs". Chronologically, it makes perfect sense. My lyrics changed to the observer's, and I moved further away from the blatantly folk inspired.

A few of these songs were used as contributions to 'various artists' compilations, but the versions included herein are all different in one way or another. "Cynthia", for example, does not feature Carita Forslunds flute and voice, just me. A couple of tracks are in earlier and, as far as I go, better mixes. I wonder why I chose inferior versions? All songs have their proper place in this setting however, and most of the songs are previously unreleased in any form.

Despite a few crunchier tracks, this is a emotionally calmer album than what you might have come to expect from me. Perhaps so because I switched focus from the inside to the outside? In any case, I'm rather pleased with many of these songs, and they have moments I can listen to with satisfaction. Usually, I tend to hear the flaws rather than the advantages, but in the case of "Sombre Trust", I actually concentrate on the good things. For instance, the guitar solo in "She Must Be Very Lonely" which I remember growing in the soil of Roger McGuinn's solo in "She Don't Care About Time". But of course, McGuinn's solo is a bit more sophisticated than mine!

Speaking of solos, I must have been under some SRC and "Black Sheep" influence while recording "Paperbird"...

Another track I am especially pleased to see released is the reworking of "The Dole of the King's Daughter". That song had been with me since the days of the Continental Soul Searchers; Modryn used to do it and we even rehearsed with Pangolin although we soon dropped it. This reflects my unability to find the right approach to it. I think I found it here!

As with "Through My Ghost", this is a solo effort without any contributions from others. It seems natural since the songs were recorded over a longer period of time than I usually spent on making a record.

As you can tell, I have many a soft spot for the songs that make up "Sombre Trust". It's a pity I never got around to actually structure them as an album way back when. But as they say, better late than never!

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THROUGH MY GHOST (Peter Scion 2000)

After slamming the door between me and Pangolin, I was an a weird state of mind. I felt disappointed and relieved, lost and on the right track, all at the same time. Sessions for Pangolin's second album had broken down to the loud noises of personality clashes and, on my part, unhappiness with the direction Pangolin was heading.

I begun the sessions for "Through My Ghost" in the very same week I left Pangolin, using most of the songs projected for the abandoned band album. Being slightly out of touch with my muse, I decided to use some songs I had recorded or at least written earlier; in some cases dating back to 1997 and 1998. "The Farthermost Shore" for instance was originally intended for the then unreleased "Strange Inconveniences". In retrospect, I think this makes "Through My Ghost" my conceptually least cohesive album. Now, almost a decade later, it plays like a mess to my ears, almost like an ill-conceived compilation album. The songs are OK, but the album as a whole is not.

Also, the album stayed in the can for way, way, way too long. Finished in 2000, it was (for reasons I'm not sure of myself) put on hold until 2002 in some kind of constipated release schedule, making it feel passé the same day it was released. Instead of using old songs, which seemed like a good idea at the time, I should have used the time re-thinking and re-structuring the album. Instead, I was recording new material for a follow-up that never happened, trying to leave "Through My Ghost" behind me. Nevertheless, when the album got out, it was met with quite positive reviews.

The album title seems more appropriate today than ever before. I was unsure where to go musically after the traumatic last days of Pangolin. I was a bit like a ghost to myself, and the album is the sound of that ghost performing. I needed to get a grip on myself again, or as they say: get my shit back together again.

After a while I began writing new songs; a lot more sparse songs, without a lot of arrangements. Most of them was just me and my acoustic guitar. When making "Through My Ghost", I held firm to my decision not involving any other musicians. Working within the frames of a band, I experienced a social hangover. With the new, post-Ghost songs, I couldn't even stand overdubs.

Maybe "Through My Ghost" should have been scrapped altogether, and instead started working all from scratch, but it was necessary to exorcise the demons of Pangolin, to get these songs out of my system. Otherwise, this ghost would have haunted me forever.

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SISTER SONGS (Peter Scion 2002)

So there I was, looking for... I don't know what. A new voice? A new approach to music? A new way of writing songs? Well, one thing was for sure: I had gotten very tired of hearing my own worn-out chords. I felt like I had become my own cliché. Creativity was getting the best of me; it demanded me, it was draining me. I felt low, and tired. What once was a liberation was now becoming a prison. I had become Peter Scion, and I had somehow lost myself again.

Something neeeded to be done. I met someone who changed my life in a way I still can't quite explain, and it wasn't even a love relationship although the songs on "Sister Songs" might lead people to believe that. It was so much greater, it was friendship of a kind one rarely experience in life. I suddenly had a sense of belonging, so it was obvious that the first track on "Sister Songs" should be entitled that: "Sense of Belonging".

However, I had still problems working on my music. Halfway through the album sessions, I gave up on it. The 13 minute opening track left me punch drunk from trying to get it together. I knew it was a song well worth finishing, but I just couldn't get it right. At one point I partially erased a channel by mistake and had to record the whole thing all over again.

I spoke to a friend of mine, a New Zealand musician, about this. He told me to give it up; to just drop music making altogether. That was the best advice I could get. Knowing that "Sister Songs" would be the last Peter Scion album reinforced me with energy to finish it. The album had a story to tell, and all I had to do was getting the missing pieces done. Suddenly I knew what the album needed, and wrote and recorded the last songs for the album. Knowing that this would be my swan song, I had to make it good. Even with the hiatus in the middle of the sessions excluded, "Sister Songs" demanded more time in the making than any previous album. At one point I described myself as "the Roger Corman of folk"; Corman was the film maker responsible for movies such as the original "Little Shop of Horrors" and the psychedelic visual anthem "The Trip", and he never spent more than a couple of weeks making a movie. "Sister Songs" on the other hand was like a high budget project without a budget at all.

Musically, I wanted "Sister Songs" to be like an overview of my entire career, albeit with entirely new songs. I think I succeeded. There are hints all the way back to "Devachan" and, with the last track "Changes Must Be", even further back in time, to my teenage years. I had rarely had a better time recording a song than "Changes Must Be" - I screamed and shouted and oddly enough, the sounds that leaped out of my mouth sounded pretty much like I did when I was the lead singer of a teenage garage band founded amidst the 80's garage revival.

Each track is different to the one preceeding it. Each track was mixed entirely from the standpoint of the song itself. I spent an incredible amount of time mixing the album, and when done I knew I had not only produced the best Peter Scion album of all, but the best album I was capable of making whatsoever.

Of course, "Sister Songs" sank more or less without a trace. It got like two reviews; the leading underground psych/folk/prog magazine obviously refused to write about it after the editor and I went on a full speed crash course in a newsgroup discussion. The original Peter Scion website went dead after I announced I was quitting music. The webmaster went out of touch and has remained so ever since.

And there I was with my magnum opus on my hands with no one to care. Crazy how things go, isn't it?

I'm still hands down, no excuses, say what you will very proud of "Sister Songs". It is the definitive Peter Scion album. It has several of my best songs ever. It has the best sound. It has sensitively worked-out overdubs from musical friends, from New Zealand to the U.S. It is the essence of Peter Scion, and even if the rest of the world tells me the album sucks, and calls me arrogant, I know it doesn't. So there.

With "Sister Songs", I knew I could retire from the music scene, knowing I had said what I wanted to say.

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CROSSING THE BLACK CAT'S PATH (P. Scion & The Poor Minstrels of Song 2000-2002)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED
(well, officially at least...)

Playing live has never been a favourite pastime of mine as I suffer from a pretty severe stage fright. Nevertheless, when I was asked to join two US acts and one from Norway for a tour in Northern Europe 2002, I had to say yes. It was after all a childhood dream coming true. Along with the Iditarod, Drekka, and Ring I squeezed myself into a tiny van going from from Oslo to Denmark, from Denmark to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands. And I realized it was so much easier performing in front of total strangers, than playing to a crowd of people consisting mostly of your friends. I know some tour participants can testify to some tour habits of mine, such as having beer before lunch and eating too much of the free food served at the venues, but oh well so it goes. (It was during this tour the appropriate expression "Feed the Swede" was coined.)

The Poor Minstrels tour provided me with the chance to realize a long-standing desire to perform with a string section. Thanks to the Iditarod's cello and viola player, my bare-bones solo sound was enhanced with a much richer sound palette. Unfortunately, there hardly seems to be any good recordings documenting the tour, even though almost every night was taped. The songs on this album, originally distributed as some kind of bootleg, were recorded in session for the Dutch radio. Included are a selection from the then not yet released "Sister Songs", a heavily reworked version "In The Forest" plus other songs rarely played live. All in all, this is by far the best live documentation of a Peter Scion live set.

Completing the album are two songs from a live performance in Gothenburg 2000, plus a stray recording from a friend's rehearsal space made in 2001.

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TRAUMAS, MISHAPS & OTHER PLEASURES (Peter Scion 1997-2002)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

There are many more songs that never found their way onto any of the regular albums. Every album I made spawned several outtakes (except for "Sister Songs" which produced only one). Some of them were pure crap, while others were rejected simply because they didn't fit in with the rest of a certain album. A couple of songs were also released on various artists compilation, and many tracks were recorded for no particular reason at all.

I've had a compilation gathering such songs in one place in mind for a long, long time. Domestica mainman Lars and I discussed the tentatively named "Sciontology" every now and then, and we even got as far as to officially promise one. But the compilation never happened. The closest I got was the first volume of the website release "Archive Series" which was a haphazard dig into the archives.

A straight reissue of "The Archive Series" seemed pointless when I now have a proper chance to collect unreleased material in one, better place. "Traumas, Mishaps & Other Pleasures" is a double album sized compilation spanning my solo career, from "Devachan" up to the days of "Sister Songs". (Archival recordings by Pangolin, Continental Soul Searchers and Modryn are sampled elsewhere.)

This compilation is a blend of previously unreleased songs and alternate versions, as well as songs provided for the abovementioned various artists comps. All in all, "Traumas" is an alternate way to tell the Peter Scion story; a meal made from the juiciest bits from the garbage can.

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BENEATH THESE DARKENED TREES (Pangolin 1999)

Suddenly I had a band. After years of recording basically all alone, I was a member of a loud outfit, bashing out electric versions of new songs or selections from my previous solo albums. At first, "Beneath These Darkened Trees" was intended mereley as a documentation of the set we had at the time, but we were so pleased with the recordings that we agreed to release them through Domestica.

Some who had come to appreciate my original recordings were skeptic to me going rock, but "Beneath These Darkened Trees" soon became the most popular of my releases. And I was personally more than happy to share the musical responsibilities with four other guys; to begin with, Pangolin was a rare example of a democratically run band. Each member took responsibility for their own part, which made the band an organic unit with potential to eject the songs further than I could possibly do on my own.

I think the weakest part on the album is my vocals. In retrospect, I think some of them should have been redone right away, but I guess that's something I have to live with. On the other hand, I really like the interplay between me and Mikael Ljung, the other guitarist of the group. The inclusion of Anna Glans's organ was a perfect idea. Her role in the band can't be estimated highly enough; the eerie Farfisa sound (not entirely unlike that of Country Joe & The Fish) wrapped the songs in a distinct yet elusive atmosphere that was a pure joy to be part of when we played. But again, no matter how much I still love each participants specific efforts, it was Pangolin as an integrated band that was our strength.

I hadn't played electric guitar in many years when we founded Pangolin. The earliest days of the band were a period of learning to me. Learning and re-discovering an instrument that despite its similarities with the acoustic guitar is an altogether very different one which demands an entirely different approach. All of a sudden, I had to learn the relation between sound, volume and technique all over again. It didn't take long before that youthful devil from my adolescence woke up again teaching the lesson: LOUD is better! If anyone in the band got tinnitus during our rehearsals, I'm afraid I'm the one to take the blame... I, for one, worsened my tinnitus, that's for sure.

"Beneath These Darkened Trees" was met with a fair share of worldwide acclaim in the underground world of contemporary psychedelic music. I'm however particularly proud of counting psych legend Bob Smith (whose 1970 album "The Visit" is a masterpiece) among our fans. We also earned the attention of Ptolemaic Terrascope editor Phil McMullen, who some time later included Pangolin on one of the CD's that came free with the magazine.

Playing with Pangolin around this time was a sheer joy, and I learned a lot from it. It certainly influenced my later solo work, daring me to leave the all acoustic sound behind. I had some great laughs and I cherish many memories from these days. One incident that always amuses me is when our drummer Sara Pang once dropped her drum stick while we were rehearsing the song "These Darkened Trees", looking up from behind the drums saying, "Sorry, I got so excited...". You simply have to love a drummer with that kind of dedication. A dedication that I believe we all shared in those days.

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THE DRUNKENSTEIN SESSIONS (Pangolin EP 2000)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED (in this form)

After the Pangolin album was released and we had played a couple of rare gigs, our drummer Sara Pang decided to leave the band. I won't deny I felt it was a huge loss of ours. She was as important to the Pangolin sound as any of us was, and with her quitting the band, I knew (and I think we all did) that the band wouldn't be quite the same without her.

We soon found a replacement for Sara, and with a new drummer who wanted to be known as M. Aaropavlo we soon set up dates for new recordings. This time we abandoned the DIY approach by hiring producer Jesper Jarold who we knew from fellow Gothenburg band Grovjobb. It was a good idea to bring him in because he did such a great job bringing out the rougher side of Pangolin. After all, "Beneath These Darkened Trees" is far slicker sounding than the band actually was.

The reason for the second Pangolin session was clearly defined: We were to record two tracks for a vinyl single released by the shortlived Chanterelle label, and a third one for the Ptolemaic Terrascope CD "This Is Pot". For the single, we settled on one original and, for the B side, a cover of the Hank Willams penned "Alone & Forsaken".

The original Chanterelle 45.

The original composition is "Poisoned River to Her Heart", recorded for my abandoned solo album "Strange Inconveniences". The riff-based song proved perfect for the band setting with Mikael Ljung pounding away at his heaviest. "Alone & Forsaken" shows us from a completely different angle; low-key and lyrical, even adding a dash of accordeon courtesy of organ player Anna Glans. The instrumental coda is almost like a song in itself, with drummer M. Aaropavlo's cut off jazz fills underlining the melancholic drama of the original song. I tried my best to emulate the 60's West Coast guitar sound with my dual solo.

However, all was not well within the band. I'm no longer certain what was actually going on, but personality clashes arose, and I wasn't feeling at all happy being in the band anymore. Problems reached a peak with "The Sea". Once a monolithic inclusion in our live set, it now turned out a monolithic catastrophe. During the Drunkenstein studio sessions, we played the song too fast which took away the tension that the song so badly needed. Besides, the arrangement is an utter mess. Nothing works the way it's supposed to do here, and knowing that this was the track that would give most people the first exposure to Pangolin flat out grieved me. God, I hated the sheer thought of it!

(In an attempt to show what I originally wanted with the song, I have fabricated a much slowed down version, running for two more minutes, which can be downloaded here. I used the slightly better rough mix for this. Unfortunately, there's nothing I can do about the arrangement, but by merely correcting the rushed pace, it gets much more evocative in line with what my intentions were.)

You can hear all my frustration in my vocals for "Poisoned River to Her Heart". It's the most furious vocals you will ever hear on any of my recordings. Deep inside, I might have known that this was Pangolin's last stand, and I felt so painfully betrayed by the circumstances. I loved this for chrissakes, and I didn't want it to end this way!

Oddly enough, I consider "Poisoned River to Her Heart" the band's finest recorded moment, every bit as good as "The Sea" was bad. There's a strain of uncontrollable danger within the grooves; I think this song was given our best shot.

Apart from mourning the band's demise, there were other problems with a disintegrating band. We were booked for the Terrastock festival in Seattle, and we had also started working on our second album which was supposed to come out on one of the hippest underground labels at that particular time, Aussie based Camera Obscura. But pushing the band onwards just because of such prestigeous appointments just didn't work. One day, during the recordings, it just broke down. I unplugged my guitar, announced I couldn't keep doing this and that I was leaving the band for good. Mikael Ljung had a very appropriate way of putting it: "Well then, that was it".

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IN THE SHADOWS OF A SILVER MORN (Pangolin 1999)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

I've rarely made any real rough mixes while recording. Instead I've tried to beat the songs into shape at once, not giving up until I've got it right, or at least what I thought was right at the time. With Pangolin, guitarist Mikael and I did a first mix to get an idea what the recordings sounded like. It had to be said though that this rough mix isn't very far from the finished album mix, but still, there's a difference between the two which is somewhat hard to explain in words. It's more of an emotional difference than anything else, something you sense rather than actually hear.

Very few have actually heard this rough mix, and I'm not even sure anyone else in the band has a copy of it. Therefore I've decided to release it here, but anyone downloading should be aware that it won't reveal a lot you didn't know about the album from the officially released version.

Included at the end is a bonus track, a rough mix of the song we contributed to Ptolemaic Terrascope. (More of which here.) I've never liked this recording in either version, but have I to choose one of two embarassing things, I'd go with this one.

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TIME VAULTS (Pangolin 1998-1999)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

WARNING: The sound on this album is seriously rough on your ears. It's a compilation of Walkman tapes, presenting Pangolin in rehearsal (except for two songs that are recorded in front of an audience). I really need to say that this album is basically for those who are already familiar with Pangolin's music. It's nowhere near a good entry point for the curious newcomer.

That said, I think this stuff is interesting in its own way. First of all, it's musically much rougher than our "studio" recordings, and maybe this is closer to what Pangolin actually sounded like: A loud, sometimes undisciplined rock band who never really knew when to finish a song. The vocals are sometimes way off and buried beneath piles of audio rubble. We occasionally lose direction and wander off into the wilderness. And sometimes we get it together, find the flow and ride the waves.

Second of all, this album presents songs never properly recorded by the band. There are several rehearsals for our second album that got stuck in limbo. Songs such as "The Devilish Mother" and "Funny" later showed up on my solo album "Through My Ghost". Also, there's an extended full band version of "Like Winter I Am" from "Devachan", plus a couple of jams.

All in all, this is a gift to the die-hards, a peek through the keyhole, not intended to be some kind of "lost second album" or anything. And yes, like icing on the cake, with a sound quality to rival your favourite Velvet Underground bootleg.

NOTE: Due to the lousy sound, "Time Vaults" is available in 320 kbit/s mp3 format only. Somehow, wav files seemed rather pointless...

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DARK MATTERS (Modryn 1995)

My love for British folk music is firmly rooted within me on a molecular level. The musical grammar of the English folk songs is one that I intuitively understood when I first heard it. (I also have an infatuation with Turkish folk music, whose scales seem perfectly natural me, but I've never been able to express myself within the realms of that tonal language.)

My obsession with UK folk had its most obvious outlet with Modryn, an acoutisc duo I had back in 1995. I played the guitar and Caroline Fritzon sang. We performed traditional material along with covers of folk rock bands we liked and the occasional original sing in the traditional vein. We played a couple of gigs to welcoming audiences, something which surprised me as I had very little experience in playing live and didn't expect such an immediate warm reception. Our first show was held at Kulturdepartementet, a tiny place with a curiously high ceiling. It almost looked as if someone had pushed the place over. The place was jam packed, and we even saw people standing outdoors in the warm summer night looking in through the open window. A show less pleasant as far as the weather goes was performed outdoors in a cave. Despite being the summer solstice, the weater was incredibly cold causing my fingers to grow stiff. The audience was equally cold and we had to cut the show short!

A reminder of the Swedish summer...

Modryn never made any proper recordings with the intention of releasing, so when Domestica asked for a Modryn album, I had to piece it together from live recordings, rehearsal tapes and the very first recording we did, on a 4 track. That's why "Dark Matters" is a bit patchy, but it is more of a charming souvenir to those who were there to know us while we were Modryn, and to those who might be interested in my musical activities prior to becoming Peter Scion.

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OUT IN THE DARKEST MORNING (Modryn EP 1999)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

As my solo career caught on, Domestica released a couple of archival sets with Modryn and Continental Soul Searchers respectively. Almost simultaneously, "Sweet Sorrow Man" saw the light of day, and we figured it would be nice celebrating the three releases with a special party. To make it even more special, I talked Caroline Fritzon of Modryn and S.T. Mikael of Continental Soul Searchers into reuniting our old bands. The three hour evening started with me playing a couple of solo songs, then the invited audience saw Modryn enter the stage to finish off the first set. For the second set, S.T. Mikael came on stage, with Carita Forslund expanding the original duo line-up. The evening ended with the first ever Pangolin performance.

It was during this retrospective show this previously unreleased Modryn EP was recorded. Despite its short running time, it is our complete set, with only the in-between songs banter edited out. This was quite possibly the best and most relaxed show Modryn ever did.

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IN THE FOREST (Continental Soul Searchers 1989/1993)

I got to know S.T. Mikael back in the city where I grew up. He was into psychedelia and progressive music long before it became fashionably retro to like it, and as a musician he had a bit of reputation already then. Later on, he became a cult legend on the burgeoning neo psych scene heralding obscure outsider private pressings.

I've said it so many times before, but I will repeat it until the day I die: Without S.T. Mikael and his influence on me, I would never have gotten into music making the way I did. He taught me courage and playing with him in the loosely held duo Continental Soul Searchers was a marvellous experience; his ability to improvise melodies amazes me to this day. His influence on me is unmeasurable. My debt to him is eternal.

My musical mentor Mikael.

We never sat down and said, hey let's start a folk psych duo. Nor did we say, alright let's call it a day. Continental Soul Searchers (who never used a "the" before the name by the way) never existed and always existed at the same time. Continental Soul Searchers existed when we happened to be in the same room at the same time with an instrument within reach.

The first recordings of ours were primitive tapes made at home. We would jam, I would play, Mikael would sing, and from the material we improvised, we later extracted ideas and worked them into songs. Sometimes we brought in songs we had written on beforehand. Eventually we booked the countryside studio run by one of Sweden's stellar art rock musicians, Lars "Lach'n" Jonsson. We recorded most of the 40 minute master tape in a day, with Lach'n adding cello and violin where appropriate.

Half of the "In The Forest" album is culled from these 1989 sessions, with highlights from a later session added. Those later 1993 songs defied the geographical distance between me and Mikael - I had moved to Gothenburg, and Mikael resided in Stockholm, and as this happened in the days before the internet, I sent him the tapes by mail, and he overdubbed vocals and tablas.

I'm sure I'll always have a certain fondness for these recordings. The early tracks in particular have a spirit that is free, exploring, playful. The atmosphere and the ambience of these songs still inspire me. And so does Mikael, who forever will remain one of the most important and influential persons in my life.

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DAYS IN THE GALLOWS (OÅR 1996)

PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED

This is so pre-historic to me! Although it was recorded in 1996, after the demise of Modryn, it feels as if this was done years earlier. Maybe because it was the first recordings where I didn't put my trust in another singer, and also had the idea to lay down more than just a song or three. I envisioned an album-like thing, and the recordings were in fact released to friends in a very small cassette edition.

I didn't have any effects to work with at the time, so the lion's share of the recordings sounds extremely dry. I think of this music as if it was cut out of an old tree. It was a time of trial and error; I was still learning the simple recording technique I had available, and I was looking for my own voice to sing with.

Half of the material I recorded for the original cassette album were sung in Swedish, and many of the lyrics were set in a decidedly Swedish environment, in a mythical past with similarities to the 19th century. The songs are populated by vagrants, werewolves, sailors and peasants, but there are instrumental tunes as well, reflecting my appreciation for the "baroque folk" style of the British acoustic guitarists I loved (and still love) so well.

The three final numbers on this compilation differ a bit from the rest of the album. "Crane Fly" is an outtake from the original sessions, previously released on the first volume of the website release "The Archive Series". The a capella cover of "Deeper Well" is another outtake from the same period, although with a heavy dose of reverb added. "Leif och Lilla Karin" was recorded for a second, unreleased cassette album, recorded straight to 2 track, with two microphones and an intentionally rough sound. I wanted to make the rawest acoustic recording ever made, and "Leif och Lilla Karin" does indeed sound like shit qualitywise! Near the end of the song, a guitar string breaks, and the song ends with me tearing off the string... The rest of the songs from these tormented sessions is of too personal a nature to warrant an official release.

"Days in the Gallows" is the soil where the seeds of the Peter Scion persona were sown. I don't think it should be compared to or seen as Scion's music, rather like a curious footnote or a missing piece of the puzzle. However, the song "Utgårda-Lars" occasionally made its way into latter days live shows.

By the way: The name OÅR is a Swedish word meaning a year of bad growth and poor harvest. It's pronounced something like "ooh-awr".

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HENS' TEETH

THE MAY TOOTH
Peter Scion: Numbers (2005)

The first monthly special is a song that actually was recorded after I officially quit music. In spring 2005, I did four songs with my friend Jan Risheden as an engineer and producer; two were songs I had taped earlier but never used, while two were the only two songs I had written since 2001. The reason why these songs were recorded at all was that Chris Eckman of the great, great band The Walkabouts had said that if I ever decided to make music again, he'd love to add some overdubs. As Chris Eckman is a true musical hero of mine, I'd been a fool to turn down the offer. So I lay down four songs, gave him a CD of them and some time later, he sent me his overdubs. But with a cruel twist of fate, I have to this day failed to merge my recordings with his overdubs. It bugs me an incredible lot, but so it goes. Anyway, this song, one of the then newly written, is one which works without overdubs, and as I'm rather satisfied with how it worked out, I hereby share it with you.

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THE JUNE TOOTH
Continental Soul Searchers: Klockan tickar (1994)

It's time for the June rarity, and this time I give you a track recorded by Continental Soul Searchers, recorded in rehearsal for our first reunion show held in 1994. It's a 10 minute instrumental jam with S.T. Mikael and me swapping solos (Mikael takes the first, while I play the second one). Sound quality isn't the best as it was recorded on a tiny Walkman tape recorder, but I'm nevertheless quite fond of this track and its spooky ambience. The title comes from what Mikael says right at the beginning of the jam, and it means "the clock is ticking".

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THE JULY, AUGUST & SEPTEMBER TEETH
Peter Scion & Carita Forslund: These Darkened Trees / Time / Somewhere At The End Of The Rainbow (1997)

Here you get three tracks in one go, all taken from a May 1997 rehearsal tape featuring me and Carita Forslund. Carita used to be one of my most trustworthy collaborators, playing with me live as well as contributing to recordings. Among her many fine efforts, she added flute to the Pangolin album and made her voice sound beautifully on tracks such as "Cynthia" and "Cold Ground".

These rehearsals were held prior to a show we played at Kulturdepartementet in Gothenburg the same month. Kulturdepartementet was like a second home to me during these days; a small place with the roof way up high above our heads. A peculiar place architecturally, but always one to warrant good shows. I loved that place, and it will always stay dear in my memory.

I had a persistent flu when we taped these songs, which is clearly audible on especially "Time" where my voice is lower than usual. Therefore, it was a relief when Carita took the lead on "Somewhere at the End of the Rainbow", a cover of the beautiful Carol of Harvest song. I think Carita's vocals here are simply stunning; fragile, sensual and eerily melancholic, all at once. These qualities come through strong and touching despite the primitive sound quality (which I at one point in time tried to "enhance" with a dash of reverb) (well, actually - more than just a dash...).

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THE OCTOBER TOOTH
Peter Scion: The Dead Tree (1997)

This track is a real oddity, which explains why it was never included any of the albums. With its obvious ambient stylings, it's closest to the sound of "Shroud Song", but it would have been out of context even on that album. It's much darker than "Shroud Song", an album which some argue is a dark piece of work in itself. "The Dead Tree" is experimental in the sense that I had no idea where I was going; all I had was my idea of mood. The mood was the starting point, and I took it from there, curious to see where I would land.

I'm actually uncertain whether this is a 1997 recording, it might be from 1998.

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THE NOVEMBER & DECEMBER TEETH
Carita Forslund featuring Peter Scion: Happy (2000)

In March 2000, Carita Forslund and I went into Pangolin's rehearsal room to record some of Carita's songs. I can't remember who's idea it was but it was a good idea; I've often pointed out that Carita was a very fine songwriter and I really wanted to work with her on a batch of songs of her choice. Besides, I needed something else to think about. I was unhappy in Pangolin, and these sessions came as a huge relief and brought back some of the creativity I felt I had lost. Carita was kind enough to let me do the arrangements which was tremendously fun. I had never worked with other people's songs that way before, and I felt like a kid in a toy store. Arranging and producing is probably the parts of music making I like the best. So I also ended producing the sessions and I was happy with the results. Sadly, those sessions were left unreleased; only a handful of people have ever heard them. However, Carita has given me the permission to publish one of the songs we recorded almost ten years ago. "Happy" is one of the least worked-on songs and therefore perhaps the least representative to these sessions. When I listened closely to the song, I realized that I couldn't shatter the fragile mood with crazy ideas and loud guitars. I sat down with my guitar, pushed the 'rec' button and played the solo I'm most proud of of all I have played. I am very happy that it was for Carita's song. I tried to emulate both the style and sound in one of my own songs later on, but it never turned out right. The spur of the moment was kind to me that day.

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Pangolin: The Sea (1999)
I believed so much in this song. I thought it had so much potential, and that Pangolin was the band to bring it out. But when we recorded it properly for a Ptolemaic Terrascope CD, it ended up an utter, shameful mess. I have released several recordings of the song, but none is anywhere as successful as this rehearsal version, recorded on a simple tape recorder in our rehearsal space. The sound quality is a hi-fi freak's nightmare, very crude and brutal, but the take is just about perfect. It has Sara Pang on drums, the original drummer for the band, and she really hammers it out. It's heavy (not jerky), dark and threatening - just the way it was supposed to be. I don't know what happened to the original tape; it might be in a box somewhere, but for the upload, I had to use a CD-R transfer of the recording. Unfortunately, the CD-R has begun to deteriorate, which is notable towards the end of the song (you can hear it as crackles and clicks). I'm sorry about that, but I really wanted to share this with you, despite the inferior technical quality. To me, this is Pangolin at our very best.

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THE JANUARY 2010 TOOTH
Peter Scion: The January You (1997 or 1998)

What could possibly be better for this month's post than a song entitled "The January You"? If you ask those who think my vocals suck, they would probably answer: "Anything except this one". The vocals are indeed a bit, erm, strange. I wanted to write a song in a key I had never used before, and with a fine sense of the appropriate, I chose one a little too high for my voice... Not many have heard this song before, but those who have have actually liked it for its strange melody and uneasy atmosphere. So here I go, giving it away to the whole world. By the way, the remains of my self criticism is now up on eBay!

I have no exact date for the recording, but I assume it was done around the same time as the "Dead Tree" track posted above, which ought to be some time late 1997 or early 1998. It was a time for experimentation; I tried to find new ways for writing songs, without any thoughts of releasing them officially. The most successful recording from this period is "Through My Ghost" which eventually came to be the title track for my 2000 album.

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THE FEBRUARY 2010 TOOTH
CONTINENTAL SOUL SEARCHERS: In the Forest (1994)

This was recorded in rehearsal at home on June 2, 1994 for our second ever live appearance a couple of days later. It was recorded on a simple Walkman machine, so sound quality is exactlywhat you can expect it to be. I do like this particular version of "In the Forest" though; it has an eerie, otherworldy feel to it that no other recording of the song has. The previously posted jam "Klockan tickar" comes from the same rehearsal, but "In the Forest" has no reverb added it to it. This is what it sounded like, according to the flawed recording equipment!

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THE MARCH-JULY 2010 TEETH
Continental Soul Searchers: Morning Of My Life (1989)
Peter Scion: Tre Harar (1989?)
Peter Scion: Strange Inconveniences (1998)
Peter Scion: City Of Dismay (1998)
Peter Scion: Mystery Train (1998)

Here are five songs in one go, to catch up with my monthly duties. First off is another track from the Continental Soul Searchers. It's one of our improvisations, and it's such a pity we never took the time to structure it. It could have been one of our best songs altogether. What we have here is an edited version of the original recording, to simulate a finished song. It's one of our dreamiest moments, and Mikael sings with great emotion and sincerity. It's a very special recording to me, and even though it's not a very worked on track, I'm really glad to share it with you.

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"Tre harar" ("Three Hares") is one of my earliest attempts at an instrumental guitar piece. As you can hear, I struggle a bit with the fingerings, but all in all it comes off OK given my lack of experience of fingerstyle guitar. I don't think I ever played it live, but it was quite popular among friends.

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"Strange Inconveniences" is another instrumental track, albeit a much later one. As you probably have guessed already, it was recording during the sessions for the album with the same name, although it wasn't really intended for the album. It's the main title from an imaginary movie. At the time I had some idea of making soundtracks for movies that don't exist, who can tell why, but that was what I was into at that particular time. This is by far the most successful attempt in that direction.

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The next track is something of a mystery to me. I know what it's about but I can't remember writing it, less so recording it. I'm uncertain of the recording date; it might have been done in 1999. At any rate, I abandoned the track before I bothered to overdub any solos or so, which is why it might strike you as a bit "naked" during the solo section. In spite of this, and the fact that the playing is a bit stiff, I like the song.

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Which brings us to the July tooth. "Mystery Train" is a devil-may-care cover of the well-known classic. It was great fun recording it, as often is with the songs I've approached with this "so what?" attitude. I can't remember considering it for any album inclusion; it was more a spur of the moment thing.

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