Now, where did we leave off? Still holding on to bits of uncertainty, it seems. And like most of our far away islands, the most distant are the ones of our creation. Then, if all of that’s the case, in 1985, Björn seemed to be pretty much on his own trip. That’s where we pick up this, our final look into the life/music of Björn Holm by surveying the makings of Änglarna Ger Mej Ingen Ro (or the Angels Give Me No Rest).
It’s not hard to hear the pull of Björn’s music, brimming with bittersweet emotion, much like Björn’s life it gave you in the span of less than four minutes his own special way of touching on such feelings. Before the sensationalist news of his daughter’s death from a home invasion or his death due to cancer in 2010, was (for a brief moment) Björn’s brush with that cruel and evasive fame. Here was when this very human struggle to make it, whatever that “it” was, came for its brief visit.
Just a year after the slight flop of his debut, 1984’s Bortom Gränsernas Hav, Björn came more prepared for the sessions to Änglarna Ger Mej Ingen Ro. For once, he was aware of the not-so-hidden potential under his song-craft and gamely tasked Coste Apetrea to rejoin him to help flesh out this album.
More booming than ever before. Way more extensively produced (or over-produced, depending on your taste for ‘80s music production), Änglarna Ger Mej Ingen Ro found Coste more than ready to expand on the template created on Björn’s debut. Now armed with even more futuristic instruments, the notable E-MU Emulator II and Drumulator to name a few, Coste saw fit to explore that futurist latin-tinged electronic pop music he had created for his own singles like “Sinnenas Eldorado”.
“Änglarna Ger Mej Ingen Ro” was written and sent to radio. This time around Björn’s guitar was given more room to roam. This time around Coste appeared more malleable to the deeper side of Björn’s lyricism. Would it be any surprise that this is when everything clicked? For once they had a hit on their hand.
Lacing the album’s gorgeous sunkissed ballads, like “En Enda Minut”, “Jag Kan Inte Glömma” and “Det Är Dej Jag Vill Ha”, were multi-tracked harmonies and wonderfully expansive major key, groovy, organic, synthetic things. Rather than just be a vehicle to show off Coste’s production style, Änglarna Ger Mej Ingen Ro” pointed to a great what if: “What if ‘70s singer-songwriters found a way to absorb the ghost in the machine?” and actually make songs that hit that confusion in your heart and evolving progression in your brain.
Songs like “Större Än Mej” definitely put the mekaniker in MOR. Somehow, Britain’s Chris Rea found in Sweden a simpatico partner to expand on what he started in Wired To The Moon. Can his “Josephine” moonlight, after the dance, with another? Björn and Coste do their best creating Swedish leftfield AOR that sounds perfect on the beach, yet, on close inspection, really warrants a closer listen during a locked-in, rainy day when the gentle pitter-pattern drum patterns have a way to take Björn’s even gentler vocals straight to where they have to go.
When you’re staying through all that rain, waiting for that grass to smell that much sweeter, and for that sun to shine that much brighter, there are perfect albums and artists who made deeply inspiring music just for that time. They may not have come back together again, as Coste and Björn went their way after this, but you need two to tango and here they found that timeless balance: a certain haziness giving way to a fleeting rainbow. At least, that’s how I remember Björn the most.