Skeppet

Though active for roughly half a decade, instrumental hypno-kosmische duo Skeppet (Swedish for “Vessel” or “Ship”) have only released two cassette EPs, one 7-inch and one split LP—each more spacious and weightless than the last—all on local labels in Sweden. Even so, their mantric ceremonial psychedelia hooked the minds behind Not Not Fun immediately, delivering on the title of a 2010 compilation curated by core members Andreas Malm and Henrik Wallin for their own Kosmisk Väg imprint: The New Wave of Swedish Cosmic Music.  
For Phase 3, the group’s first full-length, they drafted Upper Layer Cruiser Martin Nilsson to play additional percussion, infusing a texture of mind-washed congas within their futurist Popul Vuh ascension voyages and gracefully opiated raga-rock. The album mimics the journey of a deep-orbiting craft, first spiraling deep into the ether, eclipsed and endless (the 20-minute wormhole “Den Nya Kusten,” or “The New Coast”), before arcing back toward the solar wind, increasingly sunbathed and radiant (fittingly kicking off the B-side is “Solskeppet,” or “Sun-Ship”).  
A refined exploration of transportive aerodynamics and escape pod jamming by a sub-radar squadron who’ve paid their dues in the engine room, Phase 3 was recorded in waves across three years, partially at Skeppet’s home studio in Malmö and the rest at TonGeneration Studio with Björn Stegmann.