Musicians Featured:

• Tore Allin - drums

• Philip Grondaul - violin (1), Hammond Organ, Moog (2), acoustic piano (3-5)

• Ari Orduño - electric bass (3-5)

• Tomas Rindle - Hammond organ, Moog (3-5)

• Casper Sundberg - electric guitar

• Ralph Stig Dalin - acoustic piano (2), electric piano (1)

• Anders Strand - acoustic bass (1), electric bass (2)

Cover Artwork: Jay Tholen and Casper Sundberg

Press: “This lost slab of mythical prog doesn’t shy away from indulging in the retro pleasures of instrumental psych-jammage and triumphant jazz-rock.” —No Food Just Wax

Liner Notes by Bill Aldrin:

It was November 1974. An exhausted 18-year-old Bill Aldrin was clocking out following a ten hour shelf stocking stint at King Foods' Ojai location. In the same plaza stood Bill's personal nirvana, a closet-sized record store called Hi-Fi Fever. It was there that Bill would tithe a portion of his King Foods earnings every other Friday. In exchange for Bill's unwavering loyalty, Ojai's god of music (aka Henry, Hi-Fi's proprietor) would set aside whichever bargain bin records had the longest track times and most otherworldly cover art. Bill would purchase these artifacts and embark on a weekend of blissful sojourns across uncharted sonic landscapes. Klyfta's A (1972) and B (1974) were among the most memorable of these adventures.
It is now 2020. That exhausted 18-year-old Bill is now a relaxed 63-year-old Bill and the mind behind Ojai's longest running music publication, Aldrin's House of Sound. That Bill also happens to have been partially responsible for the Klyfta 'revival' of the early 2000s, following his online sleeptime chronicling of the band's music and history. That Bill, dear liner note readers, is me. I am that Bill.
Cosmic Pilgrimage: The Klyfta Tapes 1972 - 1975 represents a major victory for fans of the world's most overlooked cosmic music ensemble. It's also an alluring starting point for curious explorers of interstellar music. Like the stars scattered across the celestial heavens, Klyfta burned brightest just as they burned out and this, their first vinyl release since 1974, captures the band at their most molten. Side A includes pristine remasters of two of Klyfta's most lauded extended jazz-rock cuts. Casper Sundberg's divine guitarwork dances with Philip Grondahl's violin following Anders Strand's lengthy bass intro on Cosmos Eternal; an excellent primer for the lush auditory delights that follow. "Deep Cavern of Peril" takes listeners farther out with extended organ, synthesizer and guitar solo sections that drop into a serenely powerful chorus that always feels like coming home.
Side B delivers three stunning “lost” Klyfta tracks. These aural odysseys were commissioned in the mid-seventies as part of an experimental arcade machine prototype known as ROTOR. The machine would phase between looping tape recordings to match the on-screen action, not unlike early electronic keyboard-based samplers. While the project itself may have failed, these pieces represent Klyfta at their creative apex and are not to be missed by serious listeners. The ROTOR songs feature bassist Ari Orduño taking over for Strand (who retired from music to open his Michelin 3-star restaurant Strandzén) and 14-year old child prodigy Tomas Rindle filling in for original keyboardist Ralph Stig Dalin who died in a still unsolved murder just 24 hours before the scheduled reording session. Recorded with the band’s long time engineer, Dani Oberon, the fidelity of the ROTOR tapes is startling. Of note are Rindle's cascading Moog arpeggios on the epic "Pillars of Creation" contrasted by the single quarter note pulse of Grondahl's acoustic piano. Tore Allin's polyrhythms, always integral to Klyfta's liftoff, are in fine form here: he cleverly substitutes a standard snare backbeat for a marching floor tom and cymbal patterns on "Journey In Saturn And A Star". The album closes with "Goodbye Planet Earth," perhaps the most emotionally evocative composition of Sundberg's career. Instead of wondering what the band might have further accomplished with this lineup we must be grateful that a full 20 minutes of unheard, prime-era Klyfta exists at all.
Almost 50 years after producing the original sessions Casper found himself in a Long Beach, California studio with a new collaborator. After purchasing a bulk lot of 1/4" tape reels, producer and studio owner Chris Schlarb happened upon a number of thought-lost multi-track tapes. Schlarb reached out to fellow Long Beach resident Sundberg and, after commissioning a Casper Air Grafix original for his station wagon, the two met up at BIG EGO to begin the process of transferring these otherworldly tapes from the analog to the digital domains.
Every track on Cosmic Pilgrimage has been painstakingly remixed and remastered by BIG EGO's Chris Schlarb in collaboration with original Klyfta guitarist, composer, and visionary Casper Sundberg. In fact, to hear Sundberg tell it, "Across thousands of miles and four decades of time, I seem to have found my musical soulmate. Someone who understood what Klyfta always was. He has made my dream a reality."
Thankfully, we are all living in the same dream.