Lars Hollmer

"The same day, I made a simple round, needed to float aloft for a time, while the clouds grew dense, and once again I had to decide. So now it's good to rest with the final theme. Home again." -- Lars Hollmer, from Andetag Swedish composer, accordionist, and keyboardist Lars Hollmer was a much beloved artist who escaped the notice of many during his lifetime but who nevertheless touched listeners across the world from Europe to Asia to North America. Given his longstanding membership in the quirky Samla Mammas Manna, he was often considered a progressive rock performer, but Hollmer could just as easily be placed in folk, avant-garde, world, or even classical categories. Upon hearing his music, however, it's also easy to understand how he rendered labels meaningless, since his many influences were united by such a singular artistic persona. Rather than define Hollmer's music via stylistic boxes, it is perhaps best to focus on its warmth, intimacy, and even innocence, and its occasional tinges of melancholy. And while some of his compositions may be a bit demented at times, with unconventional instrumentation and odd time signatures, his music is also tuneful and accessible, and often disarmingly lovely. Most of Lars Hollmer's recorded music was made at the Chickenhouse, a recording studio at his home outside of Uppsala, Sweden. This is where the first incarnation of Samla Mammas Manna assembled in 1969-1970 to record the band's initial, eponymous album, released in 1971. At that point the band featured Hollmer on keyboards (although his first instrument as a child had actually been a zither -- which he soon modified into a "prepared zither" -- given to him as a gift by his grandmother) along with bassist Lars Krantz, drummer Hans Bruniusson, and percussionist Bebben...