Viandra

Artist	Lars Hollmer
Format	CD
Genre	Rock
Label Name	Cuneiform
Release Date	2008 05 13
Song List	1: Viandra (2:49) 2: Mirror Objects (1:19) 3: Sök [Seek] (2:09) 4: Snabb [Fast] (4:19) 5: Moldaviska (1:09) 6: Påztema (3:51) 7: Prozesscirk (4:34) 8: Merged with Friends (1:47) 9: Konstig [Strange] (4:41) 10: Baladeis (2:51) 11: Strutt (1:54) 12: Lilla Bye [Little Bya] (2:50) 13: Första 05 [First 05] (3:33) 14: Alice (4:11) 15: Överdagö (2:28) 16: Folkdron Menad (5:24)
Style.Categories	Avant-Prog, Classical Crossover, Experimental Rock, Modern Composition, Prog-Rock/Art Rock, Neo-Classical

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Issued in Japan through Disk Union in late 2007 and in the U.S. by Cuneiform in May of 2008, Viandra is -- astoundingly -- Lars Hollmer's first solo album to be released stateside. And while the album could be considered Hollmer's first solo full-length disc since 2000's Utsikter, he hasn't been sitting on his hands for seven years. Rather, the peripatetic Swede has been gallivanting around the globe, performing and recording with the likes of Samla Mammas Manna, Accordion Tribe, and Fanfare Pourpour, the evidence being such discs as Dear Mamma, Sea of Reeds, Lunghorn Twist, and Karusell Musik. Hollmer has been busy as a collaborator, but even his own endeavors during these years (like SOLA and the Utsikter ensemble) have had a "band" orientation that somewhat de-emphasized those elements of his artistic persona first heard during the '80s when he emerged from under the Samlas umbrella as a solo artist in his own right with XII Sibiriska Cyklar, Vill Du Höra Mer, Från Natt Idag, and Tonöga. In those days, Hollmer was often a creature of the studio, multi-tracking himself in the Chickenhouse, meticulously working out the details of his recordings not to make everything just right, but just enough wrong to cement his status as an "outsider" artist with an entirely unique and idiosyncratic sonic touch. Over two decades later -- despite the appearance on various tracks of old friends like double-reedist Michel Berckmans and violinist Santiago Jimenez, along with cellist Andreas Tengberg and, in cameo appearances, drummer Morgan Ågren, Samlas member Coste Apetrea, saxophonist Ulf Wallander, and several Hollmer grandkids -- Viandra is truly a solo Hollmer endeavor in a way not heard since 1997's Andetag and, before that, those aforementioned '80s recordings from the waning days of Von Zamla until Hollmer formed his Looping Home Orchestra.
The music on Viandra (which translates as "We + Others") was recorded and mixed between 2001 and 2007, amidst all the other projects that sent Hollmer packing up his accordion and rushing to the airport for the next flight out of Stockholm. Viandra: seven years in the making! And the cover itself would appear to be seven years in the making, if not even longer -- Hollmer's photo collage encompasses a massive electricity transmission tower, misty cathedral spires, the wide world glimpsed through his airplane window, snowy composite exterior shots of his home and the Chickenhouse, and the intimate warmth of family and musicians inside the studio or glimpsed through windows, in doorways, or perched incongruously in unexpected places, along with whimsical and even surreal juxtapositions of iconic images with hidden or implied meanings. The music itself is as wide-ranging as that photo collage and as strangely -- sometimes as magically -- wonderful as anything Hollmer has recorded in his solo career. Lars dominates on keyboards and accordion and can also be heard on melodica, glockenspiel, digital drums, percussion, wordless vocals, mandolin, and more, while the strings and Berckmans' double reeds are secondarily the most dominant voices -- almost as if the more chamber-esque elements of Utsikter were married to Hollmer's '80s solo work. Viandra thus suggests a sweep back from 2007 through perhaps a quarter century of Lars' solo music, but more striking is the mood that he brings to the 16 compositions here, which range from just over a minute to five and a half minutes in length: a sense of reflection sometimes touched with melancholy, a side of him sometimes lost in his collaborative projects with others.