Biography
Lars Gustav Gabriel Hollmer (1948 - 2008) was a Swedish accordionist, keyboardist and composer whose work draws on influences ranging from Nordic folk tunes to progressive rock. He has been a member and/or founder of over half a dozen groups, most of whose work has been recorded at The Chickenhouse, his low-tech studio in Uppsala, Sweden. His work with the band Samla Mammas Manna, in the late '60s-early '70s and up to 2002 when the reformed group played at the two-day Progfest festival in North Carolina, was and is considered progressive rock.
However, he is most centrally an empathetic and generous collaborator: whether as a member of Accordion Tribe, while working with the experimental guitarist Fred Frith, or while spending several months with Japanese jazz players, he seems to find a style that brings his partners to the fore while remaining identifiably himself. Though his work is little known in the United States, he won a Swedish Grammy award in 1999 for his record Andetag. He has also composed extensively for Swedish films, as well as for theater and dance productions.
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Consistent elements of his music throughout his career include use of irregular time signatures (often changing several times within a piece), a daring sense of improvisation (particularly vocal improvisation that utilizes nonsense syllables), and use complex polyrhythms.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.