J. Asling Roots and Friends, The Stockholm Sessions

Here we are on a much welcome Friday morning. Or here I am anyway. You may be reading this later or in another time zone. The music keeps coming. As long as it does this blog will stay open for business for a while longer. If the submissions get more sporadic it will be integrated into the Gapplegate Music Blog in the coming months.

So today we have a nice surprise in the blues-roots music of J. Asling Roots & Friends, namely The Stockholm Sessions (DO Music Records 028). Music from Northern Europe that has its own way with blues-rock-folk trad...

This is J. Asling, his rootsy tunes, appealing vocals, very crafty mostly electric guitar work, and his friends--Sven Eric Lundeqvist on piano & Hammond, Magnes Edring on banjo and dobro (!), Mick Elofsson on electric bass, and P.A. Tollbom on drums. A few guests join in from time to time, Sven Zetterberg for one, on harmonica and second guitar on a couple of tracks.

It's soulful stuff, with Asling's guitar laying down some fine lines, his vocals having a convincing kind of DIY immediacy. And the band is first-rate, too. Dig Edring's dobro, which makes for an excellent contrast to Asling on electric.

There are enough contemporary elements and a unique tunefulness that this goes beyond a straight revival sort of thing and into original directions.

You hear this a few times and you start getting how it is different, or at least I did. It's good music and lots of fun, too.

Yeah!