The Janitors are a great Swedish psychedelic noise rock band, who are the masters in producing some fine noise rock influenced distortion and fuzz-laden psychedelic rock. Stökpsych and those long dark Swedish winter nights, perfectly embodied by the Janitors ~ peddlers of heavy drones and fuzzed nightmares since 2004. When working as janitors, founder members Jonas Eriksson and Henric Herlenius
met and formed the first incarnation of the Janitors, fuelled by a love of JAMC and feedback. Together for around eighteen months, the band split and even took a hiatus for around five years. However, the urge to create is compelling. By their own admission, they sort of rushed into recording First Sign Of Delirium in 2010 and almost broke up again. Listening to First Sign Of Delirium with refreshed ears, it deserves reassessment as a stepping stone, proto-Janitors if you like, the guys are honing their skills ~ the elements are almost all in place by the song Sick State.
The name of Sweden’s ‘The Janitors’ captures a workmanlike approach to a certain sound of repeated riff-ology, bathing themselves in distortion almost as an obligation – a dirty job, but someone has to do it. From their initial line-up, the Janitors have had three bass players, five drummers and many contributing musicians but the core, consisting of Jonas Eriksson and Henric Herlenius, has stayed the same. The band
have always written and recorded in English but their essential Swedishness is often reflected in song titles and concepts. Starting their own label, Your Ears Have Been Bad And Need To Be Punished, the Janitors next recorded the Worker Drone Queen EP in their own studio Psychgrottan (‘The Psych Cave’) where “the main goal was and is to only make music by our own rules and get it out to people that might be interested”. In the same year they recorded the Head Honcho EP. This was followed by the Evil Doings Of An Evil Kind EP and the Horn Ur Marken LP, both of which examine the rise of the far right, religion, neo-liberalism and the state of our world.
Initially, immediately after having having our mind instantly, mercilessly mopped by the EP, Head Honcho, we were prepared to offer The Janitors a raise for continued stellar performance on doing that
dirty job. But it was probably two and a half minutes into “Strap Me Down,” when the wah-pedal flourishes scream louder than the unholy hounds of hell and manage to scrape the very back edges of your skull, that we realized that this is no mere job for The Janitors – this is their distorted destiny, their natural state of being ensnared by snarled sound. The Janitors are less employed than empowered, their insane, trance-inducing amplifier trashing only a job in the same way that the mighty Yeti can be said to be on the clock, and perhaps three-times as powerful.
2018’s The Ghost You Must Seek/Falcon were recorded live at Ingrid Studios in Stockholm prior to an appearance at Fuzz Club Eindhoven followed by a Fuzz Club Sessions album in 2019 recorded live in London. It seems like only yesterday but 15 Years Of Fuzz And Folköl was released in 2019 on Cardinal
Fuzz and Little Cloud Records, compiled from a collection of B-sides and unreleased tracks. Noisolation Sessions Vol.1 in 2020 and Noisolation Sessions Vol.2 in 2022, when the whole world paused for Covid and recording their next album was no longer an option, the band decided to go to their own studio to work on tunes. Tracks were recorded in one night, mixed for a week and then released into the wild, a stripped-down no frills approach, evocative of the time and prevailing circumstances. Bang up to date and the press release for 2024’s An Error Has Occurred states: “Everything’s been fucked since David Bowie died or they started up the Hadron Collider,” say the Janitors.
Marking over two decades of activity for the Swedish psych rockers, the recording is informed by
heartbreak and loss as well as the dismal state of the entire planet. For The Janitors these two polarities intertwine constantly: “What’s personal is political and vice versa.” To channel their frustration and anger, the band revived certain songs they’d shelved during the pandemic when working on the acclaimed Noisolation Sessions. They added others, written since, that suited the mood of sticking a middle finger up to the oppressive world around us. Whereas previous recordings were often layered up gradually, this time the full band (Henric Herlenius, Jonas Eriksson, Anders Thorell and Wilhelm Tengdahl) rehearsed
intensely together before laying down everything live, over two days and nights in a converted missionary church. All in all The Janitors manage to have a krautish aspect of psych, together with the noise-rock enduced fuzzy heavyness, while also more than often sounding dirty. All of this makes The Janitors an interesting listen and most of their songs end up being extremely catchy as well. In a psychedelic noise rock kind of sense.
It's Psychedelic Baby! Magazine (Interview)
LINE - UP
Jonas Eriksson (vocals, guitar, percussion, drums, organ)
Henric Herlenius (guitar, vocals, bass, organ)
Johan Risberg (drums, snare, 2003-04)
Martin Eriksson (bass, vocals)
Jon Graffe [aka Strssmmnt] (drums, percussion, noise, ?-present) Anders Thorell (percussion, drums, organ, ?-present)
Jejo Percović (drums, percussion)
Andreas Bergman (bass, ?-present)
ALBUMS ON THIS POST
01. THE JANITORS - FIRST SIGN OF DELIRIUM 2010
02. THE JANITORS - DRONE HEAD 2013
03. THE JANITORS - HORN UR MARKEN 2017
04. THE JANITORS - NOISOLATION VOL. 1 2020
05. THE JANITORS - AN ERROR HAS OCCURRED 2024
From the opening strains of ‘Time On My Side’ the bass delivers a heart pounding salvo that stirs the
blood. The drums might as well be played on your chest, they’re of such immediacy. Meanwhile the guitars hurl armour piercing, acid dipped arrows into your brain. ‘Run’ offers a chorus so brilliantly simplistic you want to pin it up in bus shelters. ‘Burn’ almost sounds like a straight down the line Jesus & Mary Chain. ‘Comeback’ has an iron rigidity that makes The Empire State Building look wobbly.
The Janitors – First Sign Of Delirium
Label: BAM – BAMCD 2022
Format: CD, Album
Country: Sweden
Released: 2010
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock
TRACKS
01. Time On My Side 5:38
02. Black Sheep 5:48
03. Run 3:18
04. Away 3:41
05. Burn 4:14
06. Sick State 4:43
07. City 4:30
08. Over 2:47
09. I See It Now 3:35
10. Comeback 3:06
11. Oh Lord 10:51
Flac Size: 310 MB
02. THE JANITORS - DRONE HEAD 2013
Cardinal Fuzz and Little Cloud Records are proud to present a long awaited vinyl re-issue of the long out of print cult neo-psych classic that is ‘Drone Head’ by The Janitors. Fuelled by folköl and an
uncontrollable urge to hiss and make noise the Janitors went into their own studio Psych grottan and during 2012 gave birth to two Ep’s, a couple of singles and remixes and a lot of raised eyebrows from audiences and blogs from all over the world. The shamanic psychedelic trance of darkness and drone of the The Worker Drone Queen and Head Honcho Ep’s ended up on more than a few end of years best offs back in 2012 and since then the cult over this record has grown and grown.
The Janitors – 2013 - Drone Head
Label: Cardinal Fuzz – CFUL008
Format: CDr, Album, Limited Edition
Country: UK
Released: Sep 23, 2013
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock
TRACKS
01. Worker Drone Queen 0:45
02. Do It Again 6:10
03. Death Song 4:29
04. Coming Down 4:55
05. Long Way Back 7:05
HEAD HONCHO EP
06. Head Honcho Pt.1 0:48
07. Strap Me Down 5:12
08. A-Bow 12:29
09. MSSG 3:45
10. Head Honcho Pt.2 6:00
BONUS TRACKS
11. Nevereverism 5:35
12. Death Song RMX (Remix – Al Lover) 4:35
13. Coming Down RMX (Remix – strssmmnt) 4:40
14. MSSG RMX 6:14
15. A-Bow RMX 4:38
Flac Size: 486 MB
03. THE JANITORS - HORN UR MARKEN 2017
Horn Ur Marken kicks in as it means to go on with a seriously dark slab of fuzz in the shape of the opening track, Trojan Horse, where treble laced guitar sits atop a wall of dark fuzz and a pounding
relentless drum beat, this is followed by the slow grind of the album’s epic title track, the intensity builds up across this ten minute opus until it ends it a squall of feedback that fades into the mind warping dark groove of Neon Times. The relentless dark twisted tones continue with the almost hypnotic beat of Blizzard and the sinister vibes of Into The Woods and Fear Of All before the tripped out finale, Alarmatica, brings Horn Ur Marken to an end.
The Janitors – Horn Ur Marken
Label: Cardinal Fuzz – CF666
Format: CD, Album, Digipack
Country: UK
Released:Apr 24, 2017
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock
TRACKS
01. Trojan Ghost 5:42
02. Horn Ur Marken 9:36
03. Neon Times 6:11
04. Blizzard 5:04
05. Into The Woods 6:42
06. Fear Of All 5:38
07. Alarmatica 5:01
Flac Size: 289 MB
04. THE JANITORS - NOISOLATION VOL. 1 2020
Noisolation Sessions Vol.1’ is a testament of three months in disturbing times. In March 2020 The Janitors had their new Album written and studio time booked -ready to unleash their latest shamanic fuzz meltdowns, then corona hit and everything changed. They figured they would go down into their own
studio to work on those tunes some more until things passed over. While working there they recorded what they felt was a most apt tune for that moment back in Spring 2020 – A cover of Joy Divisions – ‘Isolation’ – It was epic and the reaction they got confirmed it. It re-energized The Janitors and in doing so the creative juices flowed and a though kicked in - that the next week they just start writing new songs, but with the same dogmatic rules, one night of recording, one week of mixing and then it's done - A challenge of just letting the creativity flow but then leaving the song as a testament to that moment.
The Janitors – Noisolation Session Vol. 1
Label: Cardinal Fuzz – CFLCR024, Little Cloud Records – CFLCR024
Format: CDr, Album
Country: UK
Released: Nov 13, 2020
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock
TRACKS
01. Through The Storm Into Chaos 7:26
02. High On God 4:44
03. Indifferent State 10:02
04. Thing Is Rising 8:14
05. Mind Is A Terrible Thing 7:21
06. Isolation (Written By – Joy Division) 6:43
Flac Size: 301 MB
05. THE JANITORS - AN ERROR HAS OCCURRED 2024
The band, primarily made up of founder Henric Herlenius and Jonas Eriksson, are joined by the musicians
who make up The Janitors live ensemble; Andreas Thorell and Wilhelm Tengdahl, wherein after intense rehearsals, the band made the move to lay everything down live, in a church no less, over the course of two days and nights, and I can enthusiastically say the band’s approach worked, as An Error Has Occurred is a nodding, fuzzed-out, garage-psych mind-fuck album of the highest order.
The Janitors – 2024 - An Error Has Occurred
Label: Rocket Recordings – LAUNCH352
Format: Album, Limited Edition, Orange With Green Splatter
Country: UK
Released: May 24, 2024
Genre: Rock
Style: Psychedelic Rock
TRACKS
01. Anger The World 5:15
02. Kalfjallet 6:49
03. Lies 5:16
04. In A Bliss 5:52
05. Operator 9:23
06. What Is Real? 7:03
07. Farewell Spacegirl 7:25
Great! Never heard of the band.
ReplyDeleteThank you
He He He. I'm glad proposing this great band.
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