THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,522) Trúbrot — “Relax”
If Crosby, Stills and Nash had gone to Iceland to record a progressive LP, it would have sounded like Trúbrot’s second album — Undir Áhrifum/Under the Influence — which gets a 4.05/5 rating from reviewers at Prog Archives (https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=7822). The album track “Relax” is an English language joy to, dare I say, relax to — as gorgeous as Iceland’s Northern Lights (https://www.visiticeland.com/article/northern-lights-in-iceland).
Of the album, Phil Freeman writes that:
The second album by early-’70s Icelandic group Trúbrot marks a significant change in their sound, the result of extensive personnel upheaval. . . . The band’s earlier sound, which mixed ’60s pop with occasionally heavy boogie . . .was largely abandoned on Undir Áhrifum, in favor of a looser, folkier sound based on vocal harmonies. Many songs recall Crosby, Stills & Nash with their multi-part vocals and jangling acoustic guitars, while others . . . sound very influenced by Rod Stewart’s work with the Faces [or] . . . Uriah Heep at their most depressive. In another major shift, almost all the lyrics are in English, rather than Icelandic, something that was controversial in their homeland at the time. This is a strong example of early-’70s progressive rock . . . .
Weekend J adds (courtesy of Google Translate):
The album . . . was released just before Christmas 1970 . . . and was rightly advertised as the first Icelandic LP with original material only – in fact in English (except for one song) . . . . None of the songs . . . except perhaps “Relax”, enjoyed great popularity, although the album was quite strong as a whole . . . . Trúbrot was nevertheless voted band of the year in the media’s poll, and Rúnar Júlíusson pop star of the year, but this was partly thanks to the two singles. . . .
Weekend J tells us Trúbrot’s story:
The band Trúbrot is without a doubt one of the most well-known and influential bands in Icelandic music history, it was also Iceland’s first real supergroup . . . . Hljómar from Keflavík had for several years been by far the most popular band in the country . . . . The members had tried their hand abroad (1965-68) under the name Thor’s Hammer [see #518, 910] with little success and had re-adopted the Hljómar name, regained their previous popularity and released the album Hljómar II in 1968 (and another LP before that as well as several singles). The mainstays of the band, guitarist Gunnar Þórðarson and its main songwriter, and bassist Rúnar Júlíusson wanted to take on bigger challenges, and in the spring of 1969, the idea arose among the two of them, along with organist Karl J. Sighvatsson and drummer Gunnar Jökul Hákonarson, the main members of the band Flowers, who had recently released a four-song single and had a hit with songs like “Slappaðu af” and “Glugginn”, to form a new band out of the two bands. It turned out that the band was officially formed in May 1969 and in addition they got the singer of Hljóma, Shady Owens, Erlingur Björnsson, guitarist from Hljóma, was hired as the band’s agent. . . . Trúbrot was introduced with great fanfare and most people were eagerly waiting to hear from the new band, but there were still many who took a stand with the members of the two bands who were ignored, i.e. those who did not get a place in the supergroup. So it actually happened that another band was formed from the “remnants”, it was named Ævintýri and actually enjoyed great popularity for a long time as well . . . . Trúbrot . . . made their first public appearance in Sigtún at Austurvöllur (later NASA), which had been awaited with great anticipation and a large crowd came to see the new band. The band was not considered particularly impressive that evening . . . . [I]mmediately after this gathering Trúbrot flew to New York in the United States to play a few concerts, later, according to the media in Iceland, with a good reputation, under the name Midnight Sun. The Túbrotsfólk returned home to Iceland . . . [and] played at a large outdoor festival in Húsafell to a large crowd and was immediately considered much better. . . . [T]he band played for soldiers at Keflavík Airport, but was briefly banned after playing the song Give peace a change in a twenty-minute version where the soldiers sang the peace message in loud voices. In October, Trúbrot returned home and headed to record an album at Trident Studios in London. . . . [T]he self-titled album, which was released before Christmas 1969. . . . The album . . . sold very well, selling around three thousand copies, and was chosen as album of the year by Morgunblaðið and Tíman. . . . The band went abroad again in the spring, but then they headed to Denmark to play (under the name Breach of Faith) at local dance venues in Copenhagen and also to record new material, but the band stayed abroad for three weeks, five songs were recorded at the Metronome studio and they were all by Gunnar Þórðarson. In these songs, which were planned to be released on two singles . . . . Around this time, rumors began to circulate that singer Shady was leaving Trúbrot and was planning to move to the United States, but she was half American and had come to Iceland in her teens. The singer denied these rumors to some extent, saying that she would continue singing with the band for a while but would probably leave in the summer. More rumors circulated in the newspapers that turned out to be somewhat true, on the one hand that drummer Gunnar Jökull was leaving the band as well as organist Karl, the latter of whom was planning to study music. . . . [O]rganist Magnús Kjartansson was brought into the band instead of Karl . . . . Although Gunnar Jökull did not quit the band in the spring as rumours had it was clear that he was not happy in the band, he felt that the ambition had diminished and the band was getting stuck in ballroom music which was often called “spirit music” at the time. This ended in disagreement with other members of the band, especially Gunnar Þórðar, and so he left Trúbrot in early August . . . . In mid-October, the second single was released . . . . This album received excellent reviews in Vikunn and fairly in Morgunblaðið, but the change in policy to release songs in English was very controversial in Iceland at the time. All the band’s songs from then on were in English, however. . . . Trúbrot stayed in Denmark for about a month, recorded an eight-song album . . . and also played a few concerts abroad. The music became considerably heavier than before . . . . . [M]any have compared Trúbrot to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young during this period. . . . The members of Trúbrot, especially Gunnar Þórðar, were not at all happy with the band, they felt that some spark was missing and they were even about to close it down. Gunnar even had the idea of joining the band Ævintýri . . . . Before Trúbrot could break up, old friends reappeared and wanted to join the band again, Gunnar Jökull and Karl Sighvatsson. It turned out that drummer Ólafur was let go and Jökull took his place, Karl became a pure addition to the band as an organist, while Magnús moved more to the piano. This changed everything within the group and a new driving force and creativity now reigned. . . . [T]he group embarked on intense creative work and rehearsals . . . and began working on their largest work, which was conceived as a whole, it dealt with a character who is followed from cradle to grave and was later given the title … Lifun . . . . Trúbrot . . . went to London and the album was recorded at Morgan Studios and Sound Techniques . . . . [T]he band performed at the most famous outdoor festival in Icelandic history, the Saltvík Festival ’71, Youthme in second place among the best albums in Icelandic history in two polls conducted by Morgunblaðið on Icelandic Music Day in 2007 and 2009, and so on.
Man, that was a Norse saga!
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