past is present
Nils Landgren & Esbjörn Svensson: Swedish Folk Modern

A curated ACT Music vinyl series in which the past becomes the present. Timeless recordings that don't just live on, they continue to speak in the now.

About this edition: 

• First time on vinyl release of Nils Landgren & Esbjörn Svensson: Swedish Folk Modern
• Limited to 1,000 copies, each hand-numbered
• Remastered for vinyl
• Premium 180g pressing, black vinyl, lacquer disc cutting
• Exclusively commissioned liner notes for this edition
• including obi strip from premium art paper for collectors
• Custom-designed labels and inner sleeves inspired by the original artwork

To discover new music, it's worth looking not only to the present but also to the past. Today's perspective on music and its protagonists often lends historical recordings an entirely new resonance. past is present is ACT's new series of carefully curated vinyl releases, dedicated to the musical stories of more than 30 years of label history.

The first album of the past is present series vividly embodies its philosophy: Swedish Folk Modern brings together Esbjörn Svensson and Nils Landgren, two of Europe's most influential jazz musicians, in a rare and deeply intimate setting. With great sensitivity, Svensson and Landgren improvise on Swedish folk songs: pieces about love and sorrow, from the fields and from the church, that are familiar to almost everyone in Sweden. 

Swedish Folk Modern is not only an exceptional album by two musicians who understand each other instinctively. It is also a moving testament to the extraordinary range of stories that can be told through the vocabulary of jazz. Together with its follow-up Layers of Light, and alongside the posthumously released solo album HOME.S., it is one of the only recordings to feature Esbjörn Svensson, who passed away on June 14, 2008, as a leader outside his legendary trio e.s.t. A rare jewel in the crown of European jazz history, now on vinyl for the very first time.