Week of October 31, 2004
Peter Mellin - organ, piano
Finn Olafsson - guitar, vocals
Torsten Olafsson - bass, vocals
Glenn Fischer - drums, percussion
Albums:
De Homine Urbano, 1970 Philips PY 841 906
Green Man, 1971 Philips 6318 005
(De Homine Urbano/Green Man 2on1 CD: Philips/Universal Music 159 632-2,
2000)
Pictures Of Cyclus 7, 1976 CBS 81216
(CD: Green Tree/CMP GTR 621, 2004)
Blå Som Altid, 1977 KMF ROLP 6570
The title track of Ache's first album, "De Homine Urbano", was
a 20-minute long instrumental ballet suite (the ballet itself was performed in
Copenhagen and Moscow). The other side of the album had another track of equal
length with some vocal parts. The ambitious music (all written by Mellin and
Finn Olafsson) wasn't entirely successful as it relied too heavily on ideas
similar to The Nice (the classically influenced keyboards),
Vanilla Fudge
(their melodramatic, long dynamic pieces), Pink Floyd (their atonal
pieces), early
Van Der Graaf
Generator and the pastoral songs of
Procol Harum. Even
so, the album is excellent and recommended for those who enjoy the instrumental
excesses so typical of the period.
“Green Man” (1971) was an improvement, displaying more personality and
more discipline. Ache described their own performance as "a dramatic art
form based upon the coordination of heavy rock music, psychedelic light, dancing
and acting - the Ache Rock Theatre". A theatre performance to correspond
with the music was indeed planned but cancelled due to lack of money. For the
same reason, Ache disbanded in 1971.
Four years later, Finn Olafsson and Peter Mellin decided to have another go with
Stig Kreutzfeldt, Steen Toft Andersen (these two operated earlier as the duo
Stig & Steen) and Gert Smedegård (ex-Kashmir).
In true Ache tradition, a rock opera (with Bo Lillesøe writing the libretto) named, “Pictures From Cyclus 7”, was soon recorded and released. This is another interesting effort, although their final album, “Blå Som Altid”, wasn't up to the previous standards.
Taken from Scented Gardens of the Mind - A guide to the Golden Era of Progressive Rock (1968-1980) in more than 20 European Countries, by Dag Erik Asbjørnsen, Borderline Productions, ISBN 1-899855-12-2
“Pictures From Cyclus 7” is a nice surprise, and a drastic departure from the first two LPs (which were done in the typical for the era hard-psych style, with guitars fuzzed out and turned to 11, concocting bone-crunching, skull-crushing riffs to the slow-burning drone of the just as distorted Hammond organ). In contrast, it is a gentle, melodic and fragile symphonic rock effort resembling a lot of the German prog bands which were creating in the same genre around that time period (the mid-70s): Novalis, Hoelderlin, Satin Whale, Pell Mell, et.al. A must for all symph-prog fans!
Alex Gitlin
November 2004