A Night at Raji's EP  (2001,  17.58)  ****/TT A Night at Raji's Pavement Mute Naples Narcotics 22nd March

	Songs for Vowels & Mammals  (2004?,  61.41)  ****/TTT½
	Track 1 Track 2 Track 3 Track 4 Track 5 Track 6 Track 7 Track 8 Track 9	Track 10 Track 11 Track 12 Track 13 Track 14 Track 15 Track 16 Track 17 Track 18

Dial  (2007,  32.44)  ***/TT Dial

	Be My Baby Tonight  (2019,  48.52)  ***/TT
	I Was One of Hannibal's Elephants Nothing Cut Destination Unknown vs Hollywood Ending Cruise Rain Erica Casper Belafonte	Las Rascales (for J. Roberto) Black Ink Bethnal Green Postcards of Cairo No Friends Frankfurt Osaka Text

Tom & Tiger  (2020,  42.45)  ****/½ #1 #2 #3 #4

	Are You There  (2021,  50.00)  ***½/TT½
	You & Me (Intro) Spacestation Funeral Alphabat Naturales Being Kate Blues Soaked Hope Spirits Long Island The Second Voice	Vernon Urge Tim Voice The Supreme Iceman Boxes Sport Bag Sorrow (Outro)

Aftonland  (2021,  40.06)  ****/½ The Final Option Friction Tremolo Vox Humana Fading Joni Exit

	Kino  (2022,  45.42)  ****/TT½
	Omnichord Dream Free Mice Moving on Acorns in March Fakktiskt Polaroid Revenge Basik The Bait	Neal Kate Killer Langsam

Current availability:

• Raji's: download from Roth-Händle site??
• All other titles: Roth-Händle Recordings

Mellotrons used:

• Mattias Olsson's M400(s)

To be honest, I don't know an awful lot about Molesome, only that Änglagård drummer Mattias Olsson is heavily involved (it's Mattias' proud boast that there's Mellotron to be found on every single album he's played on, which has to be applauded...). Like most of his recent work, such as Geller and Pineforest Crunch, A Night at Raji's (sort of) falls into the 'intelligent, offbeat pop' category, which can be no bad thing. Mixing programmed instruments with good old-fashioned acoustic ones, it's actually effectively instrumental, although with some spoken word parts, so I suppose it isn't 'pop' at all, really. Narcotics is particularly good, with an amusing exchange on the subject of, er, 'substances'. Mellotron flutes on both Naples and 22nd March, with a couple of pitchbends to let you know it's real (as if...), along with the glockenspiels, tremolo guitar etc. A Night at Raji's is a pretty cool, modern record, which even died-in-the-wool prog fans may find acceptable; I've no idea if the band is an even remotely full-time proposition, or simply another one of Mattias' projects, but a whole album of this stuff would be most welcome.

You know when they say, "Be careful what you wish for..."? Three or so years later, what should fall onto my doormat but a full-length Molesome album, Songs for Vowels & Mammals. Is this generally available? Depends on your definition of 'generally available', I suppose; I believe it is/was available on Mattias' Roth-Händle site, if you can actually gain access to the thing. It's weirder than its predecessor and is clearly a Mattias solo project this time round, featuring the usual array of cranky old keyboards; drum machines and what's more, I have no idea what (if anything) any of the tracks are called. What is undeniable, though, is that the man has a way with a tune; many of the tracks have beautiful melodies, usually played on MiniMoog or Mellotron, though possibly more in an 'art-house film soundtrack' way than a 'worldwide hit single' one, which is probably a good thing. Moments of humour rear their ugly heads here and there, too, Track 8 being a worthy successor to Raji's Narcotics.

It's likely that some of the 'programmed drums' are actually Mattias' old Chamberlin Rhythmate, which, since it's a tape-replay device, should count as a Chamberlin, but unless/until I'm informed as to what is and what isn't, I really can't comment. As far as more standard Mellotron stuff goes, while I'm certain to miss some of the sounds used, particularly when they're stacked up in the mix, this is what I can actually hear: Cellos, flutes and strings on track 1, strings on 4 and some gorgeous, upfront flutes backed with cello on 5. Flutes and strings on 6, cellos on 10 and ghostly choirs (are there any other kind in Mellotronland?) on 11, with unidentified orchestral something-or-others on 13. 15 features flutes through a Digitek Whammy pitchbend pedal, making for some interesting octave effects, with a final Mellotronic appearance from the cellos, strings and flutes on Track 18. Now go on, tell me what I've missed.

2007 and it's another Molesome album - of a sort. Dial is the sort of thing that lazy reviewers might call 'ambient', only ambient music isn't meant to be this discordant and all-round odd, I suspect. It largely consists of moaning synth with random brass stuck on top, vocal samples and the odd bit of piano thrown in, so it would seem that 'intelligent, offbeat pop' no longer applies. Actually, this doesn't sound entirely dissimilar to Julian Cope's very odd Odin, only shorter and with slightly more variety. Mellotron? There's something stabby around the sixteen-minute mark, background choirs a few minutes later and definite flutes and strings around twenty-four minutes. When suddenly... twenty-six mins and full-on strings! Almost rhymes, too. That would appear to be your lot. Incidentally, Mattias reissued the album on Roth-Händle Recordings in 2017.

After reissuing Dial, Mattias resurrected the Molesome project properly with 2019's Be My Baby Tonight. Its cover says, "Recorded at Roth Händle Studios III and V over a number of years"; I think he's on studio no. 5 now, so these are clearly not even slightly current recordings. Unsurprisingly, it's a thoroughly mixed bag, possibly at its best on the propulsive Black Ink, the sparse No Friends and closer Osaka Text. I'll probably get this wrong (I usually do), but Mattias and Jonathan Segel both play Mellotron, while Mattias also plays Chamberlin, with solo Chamby female voice on opener I Was One Of Hannibal's Elephants, Mellotron flute on Nothing, solo Chamby male voce (?) on Cut, Mellotron choirs and mangled strings on Destination Unknown Vs Hollywood Ending, vibes on No Friends and Chamby strings (?) on Osaka Text. Seriously, half of those are probably wrong, while I'll have missed as many as I've found.

It might be better to give you a précis of Mattias' own thoughts on 2020's Tom & Tiger from its Bandcamp page, rather than bowdlerise his words.

What we get is four long tracks of sparse piano improvisation, extra instrumentation or wordless vocals added as appropriate. I've used the phrase 'quietly beautiful' before, but this is the first time I've really meant it. Prosaically, on the Mellotron front, I think we're hearing wineglasses on #3, bolstering up the (real) bowed vibes and occasional boys' choir chords on #4, but it's hardly the album's defining feature.

Given that it was recorded later the same year, Are You There, in collaboration with Hampus Nordgren-Hemlin, couldn't be more different to Tom & Tiger, although it largely retains its melancholia. Despite my best efforts, attempts to pigeonhole this mostly-instrumental material (with only a handful of vocal tracks) is futile, although apparent influences include various shades of indie, electronica, exotica, Icelandic/Scandi-pop, little bursts of early 20th-Century classical and (of course) progressive rock, albeit less than you might expect. Highlights? Almost impossible to say, given the musical diversity on offer here, but personal favourites include the insistent Alphabat, the cello-in-treble-range-driven Being Kate, Urge, Boxes and Sorrow (Outro), particularly the latter three titles' stately proggish moves. Mellotron from, variously, Mattias and Nordgren-Hemlin, with chordal strings on You & Me (Intro), background flutes (?) on Naturales, upfront strings on Urge, background ones on Tim, a non-standard flute on The Supreme, choirs and wobbly string section on Boxes and unidentified strings and woodwinds on closer Sorrow (Outro), although nothing obvious on Spacestation Funeral, Being Kate and Vernon.

Mattias' sixth album under the name, Aftonland, is a recording of stark beauty, from the cello-led, near-ambient opener The Final Option through the ten-minute Friction, cello, harp and Reine Fiske's guitar battling it out in the quietest way possible, to Vox Humana's woodwinds and brass, this raises the bar for Scandinavian ambient music, while maintaining its various contributors' roots in Sweden's and Norway's progressive and psychedelic scenes. Mellotron on one track, with what sounds like pitchbent strings on closer Exit, although the choirs are more likely to be Orchestron. Striking while the iron's hot, 2022's Kino opens with the sparse, atmospheric Omnichord Dream, shattering the mood with the clattery, percussive Free Mice, while Acorns In March's huge drums and effected guitars have more than a hint of the '80s about them, albeit in a good way. Thinking about it, that mostly benighted decade's sounds are stamped all over this album, although brief acoustic interlude Polaroid Revenge sounds more like the theme tune to a sweet British kids' TV show from 1972, amongst other outliers. Mellotron from Mattias and Nordgren-Hemlin again, with an upfront string line and distant choirs on Omnichord Dream, more of the same on Fakktiskt, rich, chordal strings on Basik, weaving flute lines and strings on The Bait and dark strings on Kate Killer, although lengthy, elegiac closer Langsam, despite Nordgren-Hemlin's credit, has nothing I can readily identify.

Bandcamp

See: Änglagård | AK-Momo | Geller | Nanook of the North | Pineforest Crunch | Reminder