Kaipa

Kaipa stands among the leading progressive rock acts to surface from Scandinavia during the 1970s, taking shape in the Swedish university town of Uppsala. Keyboardist Hans Lundin and bassist Tomas Eriksson launched the project at the outset, soon expanding the roster with drummer Ingemar Bergman and singer/guitarist Roine Stolt, who would later establish the Flower Kings. Although the band’s personnel shifted dramatically over subsequent decades, this configuration recorded the self-titled debut issued in 1975 and its 1976 successor, Inget Nytt Under Solen. Eriksson exited prior to 1978, after which the first of two unrelated bassists both named Mats Lindberg joined; Stolt remained through that year’s Solo before departing as well, prompting newcomer Mats Löfgren to handle vocals on 1980’s Händer. By the time Nattdjurstid appeared in 1982, Lundin’s surrounding musicians bore no resemblance to the original quartet he had assembled nearly ten years earlier, and the group dissolved shortly afterward, closing its initial chapter.

Two decades later Lundin and Stolt reconvened a fresh incarnation of Kaipa, yielding the sixth album, Notes from the Past, in 2002. Whereas the first five releases had been delivered entirely in Swedish, this record inaugurated an ongoing English-language era that persisted across every following title. The Lundin-Stolt alliance continued through Keyholder in 2003 and Mindrevolutions in 2005, yet Stolt left once more, allowing Lundin to steer the ensemble across the ensuing ten years and its four resulting LPs. Throughout most of that later stretch the lineup featured Lundin on keyboards alongside vocalists Aleena Gibson and Patrik Lundström, bassist Jonas Reingold, and drummer Morgan Ågren, with guitarist Per Nilsson arriving after Stolt’s exit in 2006. Since resuming activity in 2002, Kaipa has stayed a fixture on the Inside Out Music roster, issuing its thirteenth album, Children of the Sounds, in September 2017.