US AND THEM – SUMMER GREEN AND AUTUMN BROWN (Mega Dodo Records LP, CD).

More strange things are happening in Sweden………….. In early 2010 Swedish Acid Folk duo Us And Them released the Julia Dream Of All The Pretty Horses EP on Fruits de Mer Records. It was very well received by Mojo and Record Collector and is now sold out. In October 2011 Fruits de Mer released the Summerisle EP where Us And Them covered four songs from the The Wickerman. In 2012 they joined Ritual Echo Records and released four of their own songs on the Walk Light EP. Following these well received EPs, Us And Them now release their first album, Summer Green And Autumn Brown, on Mega Dodo Records. Made up of Britt Rönnholm, who sings, and Anders Håkanson, who plays the instruments, Us And Them play beguiling Psychedelic Folk deeply inspired by the music of Sandy Denny, Donovan, Bert Jansch, Vashti Bunyan, Duncan Browne and Pentangle and this beautiful record reveals all these influences.

As if by strange magic, Us And Them have created an album of such fragile beauty that is part pastoral folk, part something more melancholic…Dominated by Britt’s haunting voice Summer Green And Autumn Brown reflects the changing of the seasons, slowly shifting from a trippy, slightly proggy, stroll through lush fields and woodland landscapes flecked with sunshine and shadows to a hazier place where the dark nights are slowly drawing in and there is a chill in the air. Like label mates BeautifyJunkyards, Us And Them write gorgeous songs that absorb the best of 60s/70s Acid Folk inflected with an element of Folktronica that suggest that they are both from the past and the not too distant future. Summer Green And Autumn Brown opens with the soothing instrumental, ‘A New Beginning’, which sets the mood for the rest of the album before easing into ‘We Are Sacred’……. synths gently bubble up from beneath the surface of a gentle pool of acoustic guitars and Britt Rönnholm’s beautiful voice evoking a serene 60s/70s alternative universe where Donovan is fated as a living deity. The remainder of the album is woven from the same delicate gossamer thread where songs drift out of ether before being caught on the wind. There is a change of mood on the trippy ‘From The Inside, Looking Out’ which has more of a Prog Rock feel and is a wonderful ten minutes of woozy, swirling psychedelia, part cosmic and part from the dark forest. This is a stunning Acid Folk record and we can’t recommend it enough………….turn on, tune in……..bliss out.

Summer Green And Autumn Brown will be released on Mega Dodo Records in early October and is now available to pre-order from their Bandcamp page https://megadodo.bandcamp.com/album/summer-green-and-autumn-brown and their website http://www.mega-dodo.co.uk/. Available on either vinyl or CD as a limited edition run of 250 copies of each format. There is also a very limited edition 4xCD set available only from the Mega Dodo Bandcamp site……..as well as Summer Green And Autumn Brown album the package also includes the previous three EPs released on CD for the first time and is limited to only 100 copies.

THEE PSYCHEDELICATESSEN