The Savage Rose

Denmark's Savage Rose ranks among the most prominent rock ensembles to emerge from Continental Europe, having generated a rich catalog of compelling and wide-ranging progressive rock during the late 1960s and 1970s. Early recordings reveal understated traces of the Airplane, Doors, Pink Floyd, and further leading psychedelic acts, interwoven with classical jazz and Danish-Euro folk components. Their instrumental frameworks depend extensively on a luminous, liquid organ timbre that evokes psychedelic aquarium music. The group's most distinctive element, however, resides in the singing of principal vocalist Annisette. Her youthful, ethereal, and seductive phrasing can shift without warning into discordant, nearly overwrought outbursts reminiscent of Janis Joplin infused with Yoko Ono mannerisms, while also anticipating the style later developed by Kate Bush.

Celebrated figures in their home country, Savage Rose secured limited underground recognition beyond Denmark, resulting in several albums appearing in North America. From 1968 to 1978 the band issued nine albums, advancing from loosely psychedelic rock and the strongly gospel-oriented Refugee to the nearly classical ballet score Dodens Triumf and the folk-inflected, nearly all-Danish Solen Var Ogsa Din, with the first eight releases performed entirely in English. A politically engaged act—the Black Panthers invited the group to perform at a benefit for Bobby Seale after hearing one of their records—Savage Rose made the decisive move of abandoning studio work by the close of the 1970s in order to devote their music to leftist political causes. Although they continued composing and appearing in public, performances frequently took place at benefits and free concerts, including shows given in Lebanese hospitals, schools, and refugee camps at the P.L.O.'s invitation. Return to recording occurred gradually in the early 1980s through Danish-language projects on independent labels, before the band reentered mainstream channels with established distribution. Their mid-1990s album Black Angel constituted the first English-language release in many years and became a substantial Danish hit. By then the only remaining original members were Thomas Koppel and Annisette, now his wife; Koppel also records and composes symphonic music as a solo artist.