Vemod Alan Freeman, Audion Well, first for the 90's from Sweden we had Landberk, then the even greater Änglagård, and now Sweden's unashamed answer to the great King Crimson: the phenomenally powerful Anekdoten. To say the least, Anekdoten are quite an extraordinary quartet: Nicklas Berg has seriously taken the Robert Fripp guitar style to heart, and also has a touch of abstract jazziness in the vein of early Allan Holdsworth (circa 'Igginbottoms Wrench'), he can be both raucous and subtle (he also plays Mellotron): Jan Erik Liljeström is much more than your average bassist, he tends to to fill out the sound with solos rather than straight riffing, on the heavy tracks he can rip out a sound close to Jannick Top in his heyday, he's also the lead vocalist with a style close to John Wetton: then there's drummer Peter Nordin, who doesn't really sound like Bill Bruford, but more like a mixture of the fury of Christian Vander crossed with the nimbleness of Jon Hiseman: and last, but not least, Ankekdoten's star wild-card Anna Sofi Dahlberg, a classically trained cellist, she also plays Mellotron and does some vocals. Apparently, at one time Anekdoten's repertoire was solely King Crimson songs, and although there's some deliberate King Crimson cliché rip-offs here, Anekdoten have created a music that does things that King Crimson would probably never have thought of, and there's that underlying oddness and vitality that permeates Swedish music. To go into detail on the seven individual tracks would I'm sure ruin the surprises in store for the purchaser, but I will say this, that although Anekdoten have a style, every track on the album is quite different, from the devastating opening instrumental Karelia to the dreamy ballad Longing which is close to the quieter moments of Landberk. Closest to King Crimson is The Flow, almost a rewrite of One more Red Nightmare. Anekdoten make a fantastic and visionary music that , dare I say it, leaves Robert Fripp's 80's attempt to resurrect King Crimson way behind. Okay, maybe it's not quite the masterpiece that Änglagård's HYBRIS is, but it is pretty damn close. Anekdoten apparently played at a festival in Sweden recently together with Änglagård, Landberk and a newly reformed Samla Mammas Manna. I wish I'd known about it sooner!