|
|
|
|
||
|
||
|
|
 |
Like a Dream Back Then (2013, 45.18) ****/TTT |
|
| Back When I Came Was it Like a Dream My Dream, My Adventure Through My Kaleidoscope A Tiny Song to Lisa The Fortress of the Foreign Legion All You'll Have Isis |
Rude, But Beautiful A Bit Strange Caravello Paralello Isis in Heaven Birds in My Head |
|
 |
Me & My Kites with Tony Durant of Fuchsia (2013) ***½/TThe BandIsis' Adventure |
 |
Is it Real or is it Made? (2015, 48.35) ****/T½ |
|
| Psykjuntan Say it's Real Porcelain Cala de San Pedro Happy, Then Crying Hide Away Tonight! Turn With the Tide |
Tilbaka till Psykjuntan Narcissus War Curse Common Life |
|
 |
Natt o Dag (2018, 41.58) ***½/TTT |
|
| Natt o Dag Fingers of Senja What if We Were Flowers? Another, a Lover En Väldigt Speciell Havsfest Sister's Gonna Have a Baby Dull Sky (For CM, on a Perfect Day) AC/DC |
All Colours, Come Back! Man Kan Ta Allt Ur Jorden och Använda det, Men det Kommer Inte Tillbaka |
|
 |
A Safe Trail (2023, 42.25) ***½/TTT |
|
| Simons Sång With the Sun in Your Eyes Guardian of the Garden I Psykjuntan den III:e (for Each Their Own Apocalypse) Aurora (Ekskogen) Regnbågen (Djurby) Guardian of the Garden II Kon Kong Maa |
A Safe Trail Leken Nejden och Lockelsen Recipe for Disaster Next to a Castle Fortuno |
|
 |
Sense Nonsense (2024, recorded 2013-2020?, 26.32) ****/TTSolens VänAll Blue Sense Nonsense Isis' Adventure! The Band To Play Your Little Game Like a Dream Back Then Isis' Adventure (live at Landet) |
 |
download (2024) ***½/TT½ Skicka Vidare Nåt Fint |
 |
download (2025) ***½/T½ I en Annans Tid |
Current availability:
Mellotrons used:
David Svedmyr's Me & My Kites are named for a song on Brit-psych legends Fuchsia's rather splendid eponymous 1970 release, wasting little time in collaborating with an actual member of the band. First, though, 2013's Like a Dream Back Then contains a gentle form of psych/folk with undercurrents of something weirder and darker than that suggests; quite like Fuchsia, in fact. Top tracks? Through My Kaleidoscope, A Tiny Song To Lisa (as in Lisa o Piu) and the proggy All You'll Have, perhaps, but nothing stands out in an obvious 'should've been left off' kind of way. Svedmyr plays his Swedish MkVI, with pitchbent strings on Was It Like A Dream, My Dream, My Adventure and Rude, But Beautiful, non-pitchbent ones on The Fortress Of The Foreign Legion and All You'll Have and strings and what sounds like flutes under the real one on closer Birds In My Head, although all cello and other flute parts appear to be real. Svedmyr finally went the full monty, collaborating with Fuchsia's Tony Durant on a single for the excellent Fruits der Mer label, released as Me & My Kites with Tony Durant of Fuchsia. The Band is from an archive Fuchsia release, while Isis' Adventure is an expansion of Isis (above), both in the same vein as the album, with a flute melody and chordal strings (and brass?) on the flip.
2015's Is it Real or is it Made? does more of the same, possibly at its best on effervescent opener Psykjuntan, the quietly beautiful Cala de San Pedro, War and the Quicksilver-style duelling guitars on epic closer Common Life, but, truth be told, there's not a single weak track here. Svedmyr adds Mellotron parts here and there, with brass on Porcelain, upfront strings on Happy, Then Crying and drifting strings on Curse. 2018's Natt o Dag contains the band's usual mix of influences and styles, although it could be seen as a little more strident than its predecessors. Highlights include the opening title track, the gentle What If We Were Flowers, En Väldigt Speciell Havsfest and insistent, lengthy closer (deep breath) Man Kan Ta Allt Ur Jorden Och Använda Det, Men Det Kommer Inte Tillbaka. More of Svedmyr's Mellotron this time round, with upfront flutes (for a change), cellos and strings on Fingers Of Senja, a polyphonic flute part on En Väldigt Speciell Havsfest, strings on Sister's Gonna Have A Baby, a speedy (yet definitely Mellotronic) flute line and string pitchbends on AC/DC, upfront strings, cellos, flute, vibes and choir (!) on All Colours, Come Back! and a wobbly flute line and strings on Man Kan Ta Allt Ur Jorden etc.
2023's A Safe Trail, while a perfectly good album, seems to have lost some of the band's initial joyousness. Melancholy is fine—sometimes better than fine—but in Me & My Kites' case, something seems to have been lost. Saying that, no duffers here, highlights including the beautiful Aurora (Ekskogen), Regnbågen (Djurby) and Recipe For Disaster. Several Svedmyr Mellotron tracks, with flutes and brass on Psykjuntan Den III:e (For Each Their Own Apocalypse), flute (alongside real one), chordal strings and vibes on Aurora (Ekskogen), high flute lines and strings on Guardian Of The Garden II and the title track, flutes and brass on Recipe For Disaster and flutes and strings on closer Fortuno. The following year's Sense Nonsense mini-album (a bit too long to be an EP) is, in the band's own words, "Something old, something new, something borrowed and blue, this is a compilation album of songs that didn't make it to any record", by which they mean album, as some of them are single cuts, including both sides of the Tony Durant 7". Noticeably woozier than their more recent work, highlights include opener Solens Vän, Sense Nonsense (from an unfinished album) and Cressida cover To Play Your Little Game. Aside from Isis' Adventure! (note exclamation mark), we get a few seconds of reedy choirs on Sense Nonsense, a piping flute line on To Play Your Little Game and strings (pitchbent and otherwise) on their first recording (although not on the album of the same name) Like a Dream Back Then.
Two recent tracks (I'm writing in 2026) have been made available through their Bandcamp page, both lengthy, Swedish-language pieces. Skicka Vidare Nåt Fint (released on New Year's Eve, 2024) is a stately, seven-minute number featuring intermittent Mellotron string and cello parts, rude brass interjections and a flute line, while '25's I En Annans Tid (released just three days later) is a more insistent number, possibly showing a new direction for the band, strings and flutes drifting in and out of the mix. These two songs make a third of an album, although whether or not that's the band's intention is unknown at the time of writing.
