Splash -

Splash was a Swedish brass-rock/jazz-rock band that released the 1972 Polydor album Ut på Vischan!, followed by the self-issued 1974–78 titles Splash and Splash 2.

Members: Christer Holm (saxophone, clarinet, bassoon), Christer Jansson (guitar, violin, vocals), Gösta Rundqvist (organ, piano), Håkan Lewin (saxophone, flute), Jan Erik Westin (drums), Kaj Söderström (bass, vocals), Leif Halldén (trumpet, horn), Lennart Löfgren (trombone, horn), Henrik “Hempo” Hildén (drums), Thomas Jutterström (keyboards, violin, vocals), Torbjörn Carlsson (flute, saxophone), Leif “Gus” Dahlberg (drums)

Background

Splash assembled in 1969 in Söderhamn, a small city on Sweden’s central coast. Several founding members had played together through the 1960s in the local pop group Why, which reached the national finals of the Zingotoppen band competition in 1967 before dissolving in 1969.

The eight-piece that formed Splash brought together guitarist and vocalist Christer Jansson, bassist Kaj Söderström, organist and pianist Gösta Rundqvist, saxophonists Håkan Lewin and Christer Holm, trombonist Lennart Löfgren, trumpeter Leif Halldén, and drummer Jan Erik Westin, along with vocalist Sivert Thurell and bassist Sven-Åke Eriksson in the earliest configuration. The initial lineup shifted over the first few years, with Thurell and Eriksson departing before the band’s first recordings. By 1972, Splash secured a deal with Polydor and recorded their debut.

Ut på Vischan!

Splash released their debut album, Ut på Vischan!, in August 1972 on Polydor.

The eight-piece on this recording — Jansson on guitar, violin, and vocals; Rundqvist on organ and piano; Holm on saxophone, clarinet, and bassoon; Lewin on saxophone and flute; Halldén on trumpet; Löfgren on trombone; Söderström on bass and vocals; and Westin on drums — built the album around a brass-rock framework drawn largely from American models.

The horn section drives most of the arrangements, with Lewin and Holm’s saxophones, Halldén’s trumpet, and Löfgren’s trombone functioning as both lead voices and ensemble color. Rundqvist’s keyboards underpin the tracks with organ and piano passages that move between rhythm-section support and brief solo excursions. Vocals appear on most tracks, all sung in Swedish, and the overall approach favors song structure over extended improvisation.

“Jag minns min gröna dal” opens with a measured horn arrangement before the full ensemble enters; the track sustains a mid-tempo forward motion with organ fills beneath the melody. “Jag drömmer om en annan värld” runs longer and gives the saxophone section more room; a piano passage appears mid-track before the horns re-establish the theme. “Stormen” moves at a quicker pace, with the rhythm section more forward in the mix and the brass providing punctuating accents. The title track “Ut på vischan” is the album’s shortest piece, a direct vocal song with horn accompaniment that stays closest to pop-rock convention.

“Frihet” opens the second side with a brief, open arrangement. “Spelmannen och forskarlen” is the longest piece, running nearly seven minutes; the track moves through several distinct passages and allows the horn players more latitude. “Vår dröm” returns to a more compact, vocal-led form. “Smutsig jord” closes with a denser texture, guitar and organ sharing the harmonic space with the brass throughout.

A1. “Jag Minns Min Gröna Dal” [I Remember My Green Valley] (5:19)
A2. “Jag Drömmer Om En Annan Värld” [I Dream of Another World] (6:16)
A3. “Stormen” [The Storm] (4:34)
A4. “Ut På Vischan” [Out in the Sticks/Countryside] (3:58)

B1. “Frihet” [Freedom] (3:01)
B2. “Spelmannen Och Forskarlen” [The Fiddler and the Researcher] (6:51)
B3. “Vår Dröm” [Our Dream] (3:47)
B4. “Smutsig Jord” [Dirty Earth/Ground] (4:59)

Splash recorded Ut på Vischan! on February 6–8, 1972, with producer Ivan Nordström and engineer Gert Palmcrantz.

By 1973, Rundqvist, Lewin, and Westin had all left; in came drummer Henrik “Hempo” Hildén (a former Why member himself, having joined that band at age thirteen), second drummer Leif “Gus” Dahlberg, multi-reedist Torbjörn Carlsson, and keyboardist Thomas Jutterström, who had previously worked as a session player in Stockholm for artists including Cornelis Vreeswijk and Beppe Wolgers.

Splash

Splash released their self-titled second album in December 1974 on Pla.

The departure of Rundqvist, Lewin, and Westin between albums prompted the most significant lineup shift in the band’s history. Jutterström joined on piano, organ, synthesizer, violin, and arrangements; Carlsson added a second full reed voice on flute, soprano, alto, and tenor saxophones alongside Holm; and Hildén and Dahlberg formed a double-drum arrangement that became central to the band’s evolved sound.

The eight-piece that recorded this album — Jansson, Jutterström, Carlsson, Holm, Löfgren, Halldén, Söderström, and Hildén — condensed their second album to three extended tracks. The side-long opener runs nearly twenty-one minutes; the two pieces on the second side run approximately seven and fourteen minutes respectively. The brass section remains prominent, but the arrangements reach further into jazz-rock territory, with longer instrumental episodes and more explicit rhythmic complexity. Jutterström’s keyboard range extends to synthesizer, and both he and Jansson add violin. Odd meters appear more consistently than on the debut.

“Karottorokokrockokrokorock (Elephant Nilson)” opens with piano and vocals, then moves through a series of shifting episodes over its twenty-one minutes: massed horn figures, distorted guitar passages, a section of spoken words late in the piece, and sustained keyboard-and-brass exchanges in the central portion.

“Tiokronorspolkan” runs under seven minutes and presents the tightest structure on the record; bassoon, horns, and piano establish the opening theme before violin enters and the full ensemble drives the piece through a compact, energetic form. “Sambahmadu” closes the album at nearly fourteen minutes, drawing on Latin rhythmic patterns across a longer, more episodic structure; the guitar takes a more extended lead role here, and a guest percussionist and maracas add texture in later sections.

A. “Karottorokokrockokrokorock (Elephant Nilson)” [Carrot Rock Rock Rock Croco Rock] (20:55)

B1. “Tiokronorspolkan” [The Ten-Kronor Polka] (6:48)
B2. “Sambahmadu” [Samba Ahmadu] (13:45)

Splash recorded the album in Oslo, Norway in 1974, with Anders Oredsson producing, engineering, and mixing.

Plask issued a 7″ single in 1974, pairing “Orangutang Boomerang” (composed by Jutterström, 5:06) with “Sunday Ride” (composed by Jansson, Söderström, and Linus Kal X Blue, 5:41) on Plask Pla 101. The single was distributed by CBS-Cupol AB and recorded at Decibel Studios, Stockholm. Cover art was provided by Pher Gunnarsson.

Splash 2

Splash released their numerical third album in 1978 on Pla.

The lineup for this recording — Jansson on guitar and violin; Jutterström on keyboards; Holm and Carlsson sharing woodwind duties; Halldén on trumpet and flugelhorn; Löfgren on bass trombone; Söderström on bass and guitar; and Dahlberg on drums — maintained the same core personnel as the second album, with Hildén absent from the lineup credits.

The album runs five tracks across two sides and moves decisively away from the song-based structures of the debut; the arrangements are longer, more open, and more consistently improvisatory. Folk-influenced material appears in the opener alongside the band’s jazz-rock approach, and the overall character of the record sits closer to fusion than to the brass-rock framework of Ut på Vischan!. Odd meters and collective interplay between the horn and string voices remain consistent throughout.

“Variations on Polska & Hoppvals” opens the album with material drawn from Swedish folk dance forms — the polska and the hoppvals — woven into an eight-minute arrangement that mixes acoustic and electric textures. “Nina” follows at just under nine minutes, taking a more jazz-oriented shape with extended keyboard and horn passages. “Snusa” opens the second side and sustains a looser, slower-developing instrumental form. “El Greco” runs nearly eight minutes and presents the album’s most direct rock energy, with Jansson’s guitar taking a more aggressive lead than elsewhere on the record and the horn section driving a forceful ensemble rhythm. “Hueä” — the title an onomatopoeic construction — closes the album in a shorter, more playful form.

A1. “Variations On Polska & Hoppvals” (8:02)
A2. “Nina” (8:58)

B1. “Snusa” [To Snuff] (8:21)
B2. “El Greco” (7:48)
B3. “Hueä” [onomatopoeia] (5:19)

Splash recorded Splash 2 in April 1978 at Splash Center. Mikael Ramel engineered and mixed the album. Cover art was provided by Per Gunnarsson.

Postlude

Splash disbanded in 1979. Rundqvist went on to a distinguished jazz career in Sweden, playing alongside Toots Thielemans, Putte Wickman, Monica Zetterlund, and Bosse Broberg, among others. Hildén relocated to Karlskrona and continued as a session and live drummer until his death in 2022.

Discography: