The largest band Bo Hansson ever assembled, a violin in the front line, and a suite of rabbit music years before the film everyone remembers.

The short version

Issued on Silence in Sweden in 1975 as ‘Mellanväsen’ and internationally on Charisma as ‘Attic Thoughts’, this is the most fully arranged of Hansson’s albums. It was recorded on and off across 1974 and 1975, partly at his home and mostly at a Stockholm studio. The ensemble is the widest he used: two electric guitarists, an acoustic guitarist, two bassists, a saxophonist and a violinist. It is entirely instrumental. Sources disagree on whether the international edition appeared in 1975 or early 1976.

Rabbits, before the film

One suite here, called ‘Kaninmusik’ in Swedish and ‘Rabbit Music’ internationally, was inspired by Richard Adams’s novel ‘Watership Down’, and its two sub-sections are named for characters from it. That is worth noting because it precedes both the animated film and Hansson’s own full album on the subject, which would follow two years later. Unlike the Tolkien record, no rights dispute is documented here. The two editions also index the album differently: the Swedish pressing lists nine tracks, the international one eleven, by breaking the suite titles out as separate entries.

The sound

This is ensemble-widened, violin-lit instrumental symphonic prog, and the extra players change the record considerably. Mats Glenngrård’s violin gives several pieces a folk inflection the earlier albums did not have, the two-guitar front line allows genuine interplay, and Hansson himself is heard on Mellotron alongside organ and synthesizer. The writing is more sectional than before, with named sub-parts inside longer pieces, and the whole album has a lightness and a variety that make it the easiest of the four to sit through in one go.

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The songs

‘Funderingar På Vinden’, the title piece, opens the album in three named sections. ‘Väntan…’ is the longest single track at over seven minutes. ‘Kaninmusik’ is the Watership Down suite, running over six minutes in two named parts. The Swedish and international editions title all of these differently, so anyone cross-referencing versions should work from durations rather than names.

Reception and legacy

Like its predecessor, the album failed to chart in Britain or the United States, and no named critical assessment of it is available through the accessible sources. Its subsequent life has been steadier than that suggests: CD reissues appeared in 1996, 2004 and 2005, one of them adding a bonus track, and a Swedish CD edition followed. Among listeners who know Hansson’s catalogue it is often the album named as the most musically satisfying, even though it was the least successful of the three Charisma releases.

The verdict

This is the Bo Hansson album to reach for once the Tolkien record has done its work. It is his best-arranged and most varied record, the violin is a genuine addition rather than a garnish, and the writing has more shape than on the album before it. It asks nothing of the listener and rewards attention anyway, which is a rare combination. Newcomers should still start with ‘Sagan om Ringen’; anyone who liked that one and assumed the rest was diminishing returns should try this before concluding.

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