If it weren’t for his name discreetly written on the cover of his new album, you’d think Bror Gunnar Jansson’s Moan Snake Moan might be the lost recordings of a 1920’s American delta bluesman. But no, it’s 2014, Jansson is Swedish, and he’s playing gigs around Europe.
With his raw, dark and diabolical blues, the Swede, suspenders over his bow-tied shirt, hair slicked back, seems to be possessed by the same devil that met up with Robert Johnson one night at a Mississippi crossroads.
But Jansson’s music is in no way a sound of the past, quite the opposite.
Never has a one-man band with a guitar case for a bass drum been so relevant in a music industry that creates ready-made and plastic boy bands out of nothing every odd week. A cheap guitar and howling voice, stomping feet, and a healthy dash of talent and stage presence are a fresh relief indeed.
On his just-released second album, Bror Gunnar Jansson, who is described as “the missing link between Lightnin’ Hopkins and Kopparmarra a square known for its busking in Gothenburg, his hometown,” covers Junior Parker“s “Mystery Train”.