Music in many defines the culture and history of the city. This collection charts 3 different areas of musical influence. Firstly, Jazz, Soul & Blues. A rich legacy, Jazz clubs appeared as early as the 1920s in the city. Gothenburg, a port city with substantive maritime links to the United States, had access to these new transatlantic sounds. With a steady influx of records, live performances followed. Charles Mingus, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Horace Silver, Dizzie Gillespie and many other Jazz artists were a cornerstone of Liseberg’s summer concert programming. Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock were booked at the prestigious Konserthus venue. Players like Dexter Gordon jammed after hours at Gotheburg’s Art Dur club. And let’s It’s not forgot the prodigious Jazz talent that Sweden has produced in notable names such as Arne Domnérus, Jan Allan, Lennart Åberg, Georg Riedel and Jan Johansson.

The second print focuses on the influence of Beat, Psych and Swedish Prog. Very much a grass roots scene, the Cue Club’s Styrbjörn Colliander and Fabian Carlsson, deserve special mention. Their innovative programming, along with other clubs such as The Globe Club and Sprängkullen, saw a wealth of counter culture sounds from the UK and the U.S.A play Gothenburg, along with the support it provided for Swedish homegrown talent to develop and grow throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s and Sweden’s golden age of ‘Prog.’

The original Cue Club, along with The Globe and other clubs, were demolished to make space for the Nordstan development during the 1970’s and 1980’s. The city elders considered these Slum districts and many argued at the time, and subsequently, that there were other agendas at play. With the voice of commerce holding sway, and many arguing the ‘slum’ characterization was just a pre-text used to ‘cleanse’ the city of unwanted social behaviour, the map demonstrates how politics, cultural attitudes and power define city planning and how urban spaces are used.

The last Map focuses on Electronic music. Gothenburg’s innovation in Electronic music has always been somewhat under represented. From groundbreaking clubs such as Klubb Swing, to Gothenburg full throttle embracement of the underground Rave scene of the 90s; to labels such as Progress Productions, Ideal and Kning Disk, the influence of Dance culture and Electronic music changed not just the licensing laws and the opening times of venues in the city, it is also an indicator of how social attitudes have shifted more broadly within Swedish society.   

Peckham Soul Prints

Prints Dimensions : 500mm X 707mm
Postcard Dimensions : 105 mm x 148 mm

Designed by Craig Jamieson, these prints explore the unique diversity of Gothenburg’s cultural and social history. Focusing on archive research, they often draw on contemporaneous listing material to create completely original artwork

All designs are silk screen lithographic printed and use 100% recycled and sustainable paper.