| La Perdita Generacio | |
| Alias: | The Lost Generation |
| Origin: | Sweden |
| Genre: | Alternative rock |
| Years Active: | 2003–present |
| Label: | Vinilkosmo |
| Associated Acts: | Den Förlorade Generationen |
| Website: | http://www.vinilkosmo.com/ |
| Current Members: |
|
La Perdita Generacio (pronounced as /eo/, LPG), is a Swedish band of musicians who perform Esperanto music.
The group was formed during the 2003 International Youth Congress of Esperanto (Internacia Junulara Kongreso, IJK), held that year in Lesjöfors, Sweden. Initially the band comprised musicians who at that time were in Den Förlorade Generationen (DFG), a Swedish eco-band. The meaning of both the Swedish and the Esperanto band names is the same: “The lost generation.” LPG's first concert was spontaneous and informal, occurring during the 2003 Youth Congress's Internacia Vespero (“International Evening”); the group was then invited to play a concert the following year during IJK 2004 in Kovrov, Russia, where they received the Plej interesa muzikgrupo (“Most interesting band”) award. According to an interview with Tomas Frejarö, the group's founder and principal songwriter, both the LPG and the DFG existed at that time in parallel and independently.[1] Liner notes for Eksenlime (“Out of bounds”), their 2006 CD-ROM, also stated that La Perdita Generacio was independent of the other group.
La Perdita Generacio held concerts in Sweden, Estonia, Russia, Slovakia, Cuba, Denmark and the Netherlands, and again at the 2005 Youth Congress in Zakopane, Poland. LPG won second prize at Internacia Televido's 2006 global Verda Stelo (“Green Star”) contest and, in May of that year, performed at the joint congress of the national Swedish and Danish Esperanto associations in Malmö. The group also performed during other North European events such as Ago-Semajno (“Action week”), a Polish New Year's festival; KEF, a Scandinavian summer Esperanto cultural festival; and Oranĝa Renkontiĝo, a Swedish harvest festival that draws Esperantists from several nearby lands.
Since 2005 LPG has been headquartered in the Swedish northern city of Härnösand, where the official international launch of Eksenlime took place in 2007. During the Oranĝa Renkontiĝo in September 2008, LPG launched their second album Eksplodigos vian domon (“We'll explode your house”), and in 2013 they released Ĉiamen plu (“Forevermore”).
LPG published CDs through Gränslösa Kulturföreningen (“Border-free cultural association”), an alternative non-profit network that publishes various Esperanto artists, and participated in the Öland harvest festival's compilation CD En musikaliska skördefest (2007). Since 2007 LPG has collaborated with Vinilkosmo, which co-published the Eksplodigos vian domon album. In 2015 the song La 100-a Fojo (“The Hundredth time”), written to honour the 100th broadcast of the Varsovio Vento (“Warsaw wind”) podcast, earned second prize at a Kontakto music contest.[2]
Over the years, many different people from several countries have from time to time performed with the LPG band, including Ana Burenius, Jon Johnson, Karolina Hagegård, Thomas Frejarö, Jonas Dalmose, Mathias Dalmose, Karin Malin Ekström, Karin Nordström, Viktor Söderkvist, Ksenya Prilepskaya, Robin Rönnlund, Anna Ekman, Malak Awad, Daniel von Gertten, Camille Delepierre, Andreas Nilsson, Gus Loxbo, Amanda Lind, Anne Hagström, Hendrik Lönngren and Magnus Persson. Since 2009, the band's membership has shrunk, and often just two to four people, mainly people linked to Härnösand or Lund, will perform.
It is sometimes difficult to ascertain the genre of some of the band's songs, but the music is often characterized as alternative rock. As many of their songs take a position on various issues of contemporary society, they can also be called protest songs.[3]
Russian reviewer Andrej Peĉonkin calls the band's Esperanto word coinage iamio (“a sometime land”), used as part of a song title, "a beautiful neologism" which combines concepts of time and space to refer to a future defined by present global warming.[3] However, he contests the band's use of their created word asroni,[3] which they derive from the Persian word asroneʿh and define to mean a conversation with friends over light food, and/or drinks.[4]
Italian reviewer Giorgio Di Nucci wrote:
“Eksenlime, edited in 2006, (...) cannot be placed into any specific genre. While the instruments used are not unusual and the melodies are not too precious, we can find some interesting and possibly even somewhat risky changes of genre, such as in La Matenrampanto, which approximates folk style, or Ekde Gernika (“After Guernica”), which seems like an attempt at twelve-tone technique. Otherwise, however, it's a nice-sounding album.
Their newest album, Ĉiamen plu, published in 2013, parts company with the rock genre, as it lacks electric guitars and drums; compared to the former, this album is even less amenable to classification, combining a greater instrumental refinement and innovation. One should note that in a few songs, like Domoarigato, the singer hits a few false notes.” [5]