Jens

A record of overcast psych-folk that begs to grace the turntable during the winter months, Be As Good To Others As They Are Not To You from Jens Unosson ought to find a place on the speakers of fans of private press ‘60s and ‘70s psychedelic folk. Unosson holds roots in Swedish bands like Holy River Family Band and The Brotherhood of Eternal Love, but might be most familiar around here for his work with longtime psych outfit The Spacious Mind. Where the Mind digs deep into thick plumes of kosmiche smoke, Jens instead explores a balance between fuzz and folk — plumbing deep into the well of psych folk that fed Relatively Clean Rivers, Pearls Before Swine, and Jakob Olausson.

Along with longtime collaborator Arne Jonasson (Kundalini, Holy River Family Band) and backing band Head Country Hoedowners, Unosson exhumes funeral folk specters, touches of loner country, elements of bluegrass’ darkest corners, and the sparser arrangements of Japanese psych. In fact the title track carries much of the same solemn weight of Ghost’s classic Lama Rabi Rabi. Jens has a habit of evoking the scratched soot vocals of Masaki Batoh on more than a few moments on the album, no small feat indeed. Unosson’s years spent in the forge of Swedish psychedelia have proffered an album that wraps around the listener like a blanket doused in blood — comforting, but also a reminder of the darkness that makes you shiver in the first place.