There are about five different angles of approach I’ve come up with that I could take in discussing Vaka‘s 2009 full-length debut and lone-to-date offering, Kappa Delta Phi (review here). Here they are:

1. I could start by telling you about the career trajectory that led Karl Daniel Lidén to form the studio project, solo-based but expanded into complete-band arrangements filled out by players recruited for bass, guitar, vocals, even some cello tucked into expansively marching, gloriously Mellotronned closer “For Redemption.” Already by 2009, Lidén had been a member of Demon Cleaner, Greenleaf and Dozer. He’d founded Tri-Lamb Studios, where he’d not only record his own drums, piano, Mellotron and other keys, synth and probably a little bit of whatever was around for the Vaka material he composed, but would go on to helm albums for Katatonia, Greenleaf, Switchblade, Propane Propane, Bloodbath, Crippled Black Phoenix and a slew of others. He’s been an essential part of the course of Swedish heavy music over the last 20-plus years and Kappa Delta Phi remains the project of his own that, to-date, he has most spearheaded as a musician, songwriter, and producer. It’s a fun story, and a multifaceted enough record to stand up to the winding course which brought Lidén to it circa 2008-2009.

2. I could talk about the songs themselves, which are varied as one might expect for an album that features upwards of 10 different players contributing to its 10 component pieces and built on mostly post-metallic foundations given distinction through heavy use of piano — it starts on the intro “The Ship” and piano and keys are prominent throughout; a common element skillfully tying otherwise disparate ideas together; it’s very much a producer’s record — and marked by the shifts in atmosphere from the call-and-response barks and Neurosis-style churn of the nine-minute “Born to Secrecy” to the rumbling, lumbering payoff of the writhing “Stalemates” near the finish, to the midsection, might’ve-been-the-side-B-intro-to-a-vinyl-release interlude “Glacialis” and the various drones abounding blending the grounded and ethereal, severity and float. What might’ve been a messy process (let alone mix) working remotely before doing so became commonplace resulting in crushing, purposeful, and thrillingly volatile songs. There’s a lot going on here and a lot to talk about. This also would be fun.

3. I could tell you that when the Bandcamp broken heart thing came up because I’d streamed the album so many times revisiting it over the last couple weeks, I bought it (I have the CD from when it was released on Murkhouse Recordings in ’09 as well), and downloaded the wav files instead of mp3s because I wanted to hear it as full and uncompressed as possible.

4. I could run down that aforementioned significant number of artists involved in making the record, from vocalist Manne Ikonen (also ex-Zerocharisma) and guitarist Wille Naukkarinen (also ex-Sunride, he runs St-st-studio as well), both of Finland’s Ghost Brigade, contributing to “Born to Secrecy,” Ikonen trading lines with Misha Sedini of Come Sleep and Lingua, among others, to cellist Christoffer Ohlsson (Blue Foundation) adding to the breadth of “For Redemption,” where Melloboat Festival founder Stefan Dimle (also Landberk) handles bass. Ikonen and Naukkarinen, the Finnish contingent, both take part in the linear build across “At the Hands of Loss,” and also on bass are Johan Rockner, known for his work in Dozer and Greenleaf and up until 2023 also in Besvärjelsen, and Peder Bergstrand, who in 2008 released the debut from I Are Droid (who played in Stockholm last month; a third LP would be a pleasant surprise), and had already issued one of the most influential heavy rock records of the turn-of-the-century era in Lowrider‘s ultra-classic 2000 debut, Ode to Io (reissue review here). Bergstrand (who also did the design and layout for the digipak) and Rockner had both worked with Lidén previously in some context or other between Greenleaf and Dozer. Very much a drummer picking his bassists, which is probably what you want here. Erik Nilsson (Come Sleep, runs Version Studio in Stockholm) contributes guitar to highlight cut “I of Everything” — a hook to serve as landmark, and a righteous takeoff in its second half hitting its mark for post-metal’s requisite “Stones From the Sky” moment — as well as “Stalemates” and “For Redemption,” where Tommi Holappa (Dozer, Greenleaf) also adds the slide guitar that courses the melodic thread through the adrenaline-push crescendo. With Lidén‘s drums and keys at the core represented through his own signature production style — he gets a drum sound that is his own, period — the tracks on Kappa Delta Phi range far into atmospheric heavy and are willing to sound messy without being a mess, unfold into a landscape’s shimmer drone or dive into make-a-stinkface bludgeonry as “Born to Secrecy” nails its apex to your forehead. I count Vaka alongside Battle of Mice and SubRosa as an example of what I wish post-metal had evolved into.

5. Inevitably, I would finish by noting the never-say-never nature of rock and roll and life more generally, and perhaps wonder what might’ve been had Vaka done a second album or what might be if you rolled a 20 on a longshot and Lidén picked up the project again at some point. Not the most likely, not impossible, but for how much of Kappa Delta Phi is constructed around experiments in synth and keys laid over the drum tracks and then layered again with guitar, bass, more synth, vocals, etc., Lidén could have taken the band in any number of directions even just as regards his own songwriting, never mind putting together a lineup, playing live, or continuing with the ethic of guest performers. Whatever aesthetic elements might have been working in accord with the tenets of post-metal, Kappa Delta Phi was too much its own thing to be derivative, and wound up a singular expression and perhaps a footnote in a storied career, but only a footnote because not nearly enough people have heard this record.

And to go back to the top, I couldn’t decide which of these five approaches I wanted to take… so I took them all. For a collection that on paper might seem like a jumble but that proves coherent when engaged, it doesn’t seem like the least appropriate move. As always, I thank you for reading and hope you enjoy.

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Costco trip in a couple minutes, so I’m short on time. Need eggs, cheese, rug cleaner, a few other odds and ends. More possible during school hours, which are also my main writing hours these days. I’ve been playing a good bit of Zelda and relaxing some as well. The Patient Mrs. and I are doing a January yoga challenge that we also did last year, which I feel like a dork about but is actually awesome in the doing. Never underestimate the value of a good stretch in middle-age. That shit can make your whole day better.

The Patient Mrs. got sworn in on the Board of Education last night, so The Pecan and I rolled along (also like half my family was there) to see mommy continue to be amazing. We spent most of the time in a conference room down the hall with the Switch (kiddo also enjoys a good bit of Tears of the Kingdom and we mostly play as a family, but I do a decent bit of resource farming on my own as well because I’m compulsive and enjoy it), but she did get to be in the room for the actual thing. The board is divided politically, so her reasonable, ultra-competent, able-to-listen-and-process-and-then-respond-to-a-thing presence as a progressive can only be a boon. To say I am proud of her is laughable because she’s in another league entirely. I might as well be proud of the planet Jupiter.

Up and down week. The Pecan, super-punchy, mostly to The Patient Mrs. She’s got a long-term sub at school since her kindergarten teacher went out on maternity leave — till April rather than like the three years that are actually required for such a thing, because Americans are savages — and has never handled going from one thing to the other with smoothness generally. I don’t like having my routine upset either, if you couldn’t tell just from looking around this site, so I get where she’s coming from. She’s also not sleeping because ADHD drugs and being super-tired, super-resistant to the idea of laying down pretty much ever, and broadly given to ignoring you no less than 80 percent of the time when you ask her to do a thing, whether it’s go pee or grab a game to play — often that’s a question of her being hyperfocused on a thing, but yeah sometimes she’s just not giving a fuck — so perhaps it’s fair to note what success is being had despite the wobbly setup for it of late. I haven’t heard from the principal since at least early December for anything behavioral. The meds are working, which is a mantra. She lets me brush her hair. And sometimes, maybe once every day or two, you can say to please throw her socks in the wash or get her jacket and it’ll happen. It’s hard to remember after the tumult that defined the second half of 2023, but I don’t think that was the case last January, or at least not to the same proportion between the yes and no. We argue less than we used to, but I did say “bullshit” the other day when we were fighting to get her to take a bath. Ugh. In my defense, I was in the process of calling her a genius and telling her not to waste her time on bullshit. There are only so many hours in the day. Before dropoff this morning, The Patient Mrs. got the shit kicked out of her trying to put in pony tails for a school spirit day. We spend so much time doing that, we miss out on other stuff.

I also will note that I suck at and apparently don’t particularly enjoy fun. Fun is not fun for me. Fun is work. Fun is I gotta go to some place that I don’t want to be at, probably see a bunch of people, feel weird and put on and then do whatever wrong or badly and feel like garbage later. I’ve never been good at fun. I sucked at sports. I was fat and weird didn’t have a lot of friends. I wrote stories as a kid. I trudged around my neighborhood listening to Alice in Chains’ Dirt on my tape Walkman. This was my idea of a good time. What’s changed is that when you have a kid you have to go do all kinds of shit. You have to go to see things and be in places where people are and you have to pretend you feel normal doing any of it and it gets pretty wretched in my head. People talk about stuff that’s fun and I fear the word. Who the hell wants to get on a rollercoaster? Not even just for the fact that they’re shoddy or some safety concern. I mean who wants to get up, get dressed, leave their house to go to some expensive-ass theme park or some extra-rundown local thing or a town fair and go stand in line to get in, stand in line for tickets, stand in line for the ride, bake in the sun on a hot day, and then be shoved around and up and down in a machine at high speed, only to return to the ground like three minutes later expected to be grateful for the experience? Fuck that shit. I’ll stay home and eat a gummy.

And on that happy note, it’s time to go to Costco. I hope you have a great and safe weekend, and as always, I appreciate your time and value your being a part of this thing. Watch your head, don’t forget to hydrate, and I’ll be back on Monday with I don’t know probably a review and some more complaining about stuff, because I’m charming like that.

FRM.

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Demon Cleaner, The Freeflight (2000)

Something of a lost classic of its era now, Demon Cleaner‘s 2000 debut, The Freeflight isn’t actually all that lost. Molten Universe, the label that put it out 16 years ago along with early releases by related Swedish acts Dozer and Greenleaf, still has copies available. So maybe not lost, but in the pantheon of the beginnings of Europe’s stoner rock boom of the late ’90s and early ’00s, Demon Cleaner deserve consideration alongside Dozer and Lowrider, among others, and their name is often left off that list. Part of that I think is owed to timing. If the early-Fu Manchu fuzz of “Head Honcho” or “Megawheel” dropped today, it would come accompanied by a video of somebody skateboarding in slow motion and would be hailed for its post-grunge authenticity of tone and live feel. Because it was 2000 — a time when discovering music on the internet was something done largely through surfing somebody’s Napster offerings or the odd message board — the process was different and not nearly so widespread, and unlike Lowrider, who had US distribution through MeteorCity, or Dozer, who kept putting out records, Demon Cleaner called it quits after 2002’s self-titled follow-up (also on Molten Universe), with members moving onto Stonewall Noise Orchestra and drummer Karl Daniel Lidén joining Dozer and Greenleaf before embarking on solo material and a successful career as an engineer — he did the latest Katatonia, for example — so there hasn’t been the same kind of sustained legacy for Demon Cleaner as some of their peers.

That, of course, does nothing to diminish the “Spit blood and gasoline/Chrome and steel/Megawheel” appeal of that track or the nodding roll of “Up in Smoke,” or the push of a song like “Mothertrucker,” in which one can hear the roots of a brand of fuzz rock that countrymen acts like Truckfighters would continue to progress years later. Tone is a huge part of the appeal, as closer “Heading Home” successfully emphasizes, but there’s a rawness in the vocals, a dryness, where so much of what came afterwards was and has been drenched in reverb. It gives the delivery of guitarist Daniel Söderholm — joined at this point by Lidén, guitarist Kimmo Holappa and bassist/vocalist Martin Stangefelt — a punkish feel that’s ultimately much truer to the bulk of what came out of the Californian desert scene, whether it was Kyuss or heavy rock compatriots like the aforementioned Fu Manchu. Listening back to The Freeflight now, one can hear the aesthetic of pre-retro European heavy rock taking shape, and while Demon Cleaner may always be noted for having issued a trio of early splits alongside Dozer before their records dropped, linking those two acts and that scene, their albums deliver something from which even Dozer was operating on a different wavelength, and while of their time, I think these tracks still hold up all these years later.

If you’re worried about investing the time in checking it out, The Freeflight has a long break after “Heading Home” before a hidden cut, so it’s not actually 55 minutes long. I guess it was the Lowrider news earlier today got me thinking about these guys, but either way, I hope you enjoy.

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If you’re at Desertfest this weekend in either Berlin or London, I hope you have an absolute blast. I’ll admit to being more than a little jealous. Maybe next year I’ll get to Berlin finally or make a triumphant return to Camden Town. I’ll go anywhere that’ll have me, basically.

Rough week at work but who cares? Dragged down by bullshit. Hate letting it get to me. Hate that it does at all. The list goes on. Screw it. Got a couple days not to think about it, so I’m gonna hold tight to that.

Next week: Monday, track stream from Bright Curse and an in-studio report about the new Scissorfight being tracked at the new Mad Oak. Tuesday (right now), Crypt Sermon interview. Wednesday, track stream from Wo Fat. Thursday and Friday I don’t know yet, but probably something will come along, and there are also videos for Kadavar, Limestone Whale, Spiritual Beggars and Drive by Wire that have all dropped in like the last day, so a bit of a backlog there, but I’ll do my best to get on top of that as well. We’re getting into May already. Amazing how quick this year is going.

Before I go — much as I’m ever “gone,” what with writing on the weekends and all — I want to say thanks for the tremendous amount of support I’ve gotten for the book release, for the All-Dayer in August, and for this year’s Roadburn coverage. It’s all hugely appreciated. Because I work full-time in addition to doing this, I don’t always have the chance to be as communicative as I should, because quite literally the choice I make every day is to write or to do everything else and if it’s one or the other I’m writing every time, but please know that if you’ve reached out to me over the last few weeks, thank you. And if you haven’t and you’re reading this, thank you anyway.

Please have a great and safe weekend, and please check out the forum and the radio stream.

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It’s quite a ways to go from the self-titled Demon Cleaner album’s good-timey rocking Kyuss groove to Vaka‘s Kappa Delta Phi, but considering it took Karl Daniel Lid?n seven years to make the leap from playing drums on the one to doing everything on the other including producing and mixing, the stylistic shift at least has some context. With Vaka, Lid?n tackles a heavy post-metal aesthetic with a unique, piano-laden approach to what’s become a style flooded with mediocre bands.

That said, a Neurosis comparison isn’t necessarily inappropriate, and there are some Enemy Of The Sun-isms present for sure, but the brand of crushingly atmospheric experimentalism Vaka emit strikes even more like a hyper-realized version of Enslaved offshoot Trinacria, who released their Travel Now Journey Infinitely debut last year. There is a weighty darkness to the music that strikes as pure Scandinavian, rather than born out of US hard/metalcore as so many other post-metal acts are. Sounds more like itself, in other words. Not a bad thing.

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