This item spins off from the world music item, I guess... I decided to enter it after learning in party that Font is a Hedningarna fan. Also, I got a couple of mailing list items which I can pass along to Twila:41 responses total.
From: Mattias Mattsson <Mattias.Mattsson@icast.com> To: hedningarna@cdt.luth.se, kari@zengarden.fi Subject: Sanna Kurki-Suonio Hi All, This email has been lying around in my mailbox for some time now and I finally got around to share it with you: > > Hi there, > Just to inform you that we (Zen Garden Records) have signed SANS, the > new group fronted by Sanna Kurki-Suonio - known from Headningarna. > They've been in studio and the first single or Ep will be out on March. > All the best, > Kari Hynninen
I haven't had any luck in learning any about Sanna's new project. The web pages for Zen Garden Records in Finland seem to be rather static. The two brilliant Hedningarna albums, KAKSI and TRA, get their long-awaited USA release on Tuesday. I expect to become quite tiresome on the subject. I'm playing KAKSI right now at roof-shaking volume; six years on and I'm still madly in love with it.
The Northside label, which is issuing all sorts of interesting Scandinavian folk'n'roots music for an American audience, has a new CD sampler out called NORDIC ROOTS. Twila mentioned to me that Borders has restocked it; they also have it in a play station, so you can check it out before you invest the mammoth sum of $3 in it. 20 tracks, 78 minutes, $3; I think almost every track is worthwhile, but then I already own about half of the albums.... anyway, if you are at all curious about this stuff, here's a great opportunity to get a taste.
Hmmm.. For $3 that certainly sounds worth a listen..
Oh it is. Fantastic. I had several of the albums, too, but it's a great compilation. Vasen is coming to the Ark in September.
Bought the sampler and like it reasonably well on first listen -- a little bit more Scandinavian folk music than I'm ready for in one sitting just yet but I can see why krj likes Hedningarna, their tracks stood out to me as fairly interesting even at first liten, I liked their mix of obviously traditional styles with modern influences. I'm not sure I'll ever flip over them the way krj has but now that their albums are apparently (reasonably) available in the U.S. I may have to check one out.. Recommendations?
Kaksi is my fave. It is the one with the two women vocalists and is more accesible than Tra. Hippjok doesn't have the women singers, but it's got jojking on it.
(clueless question - what is 'jojking'?)
"joiking" (spelling seems to vary) is a Sami (Lapp) style of improvisational singing. That's the best I can do off the top of my head. As for the Hedningarna CDs: KAKSI, the first one with the two women singers, I just love to death: I played it literally every day for six months after I got it. It's one of the perfect albums. TRA, the other album with the women singers, is more complex in places and has some great tracks, but isn't perfect. But since I have to go visit Mike anyway to pick up a CD he bought for me, I should just bring over one or both of these so he can borrow them for a bit.
And of course therre's the American compilation which has stuff from KAKSI and TRA on it. It's maybe not perfect, but it's a nice intro.
(That Hedningarna compilation was FIRE, on Sony/Tristar. It was utterly unpromoted -- Schoolkids, which usually stocks world music stuff, never got a copy -- and is now out of print.)
But Borders did get copies, which is weird. So did Tower.
Elderly Instruments's catalog lists a new Varttina cd, VIHMA. I thought I had read that Sari Kaskinen has left the band, and she was sort of its guiding spirit, so I have no idea what to expect here.
Vasen, The Ark, Sunday September 20: Nice show; almost a chamber folk sort of ensemble, although that may be too polite a description for them. Instrumental lineup: a conventional fiddle, a nyckelharpa (keyed fiddle), percussion and guitar. There were a lot of the long loping melody lines which characterize Swedish folk music. I suspect the drummer was Sami: partially from the dress, partially from the Native American feeling that a lot of the percussion had.
Hhmmmm. Yeah, that might make a lot of sense (that the drummer was Sami) -- I actually *blush* thought he was a girl throughout, since I only saw him from the side and sitting down, and I took the hair feathers to be a weird kerchief until I saw him up close. For me, it was a very nice show -- I liked it a lot more than I thought I would -- since I usually don't enjoy totally instrumental bands, this was a surprise, but I didn't even get bored in the middle of some of the longer songs. I *really* liked the drumming, and the odd other- worldly effects he got out of his set-up, and I also liked the nyckel- harpa quite a bit. Very effective.
I just got promotional e-mail from the Northside Records people. They announce the new Hedningarna album for US release on February 23.
I just got even more promotional e-mail from the Northside Records people. They are hosting a "Nordic Roots Music Festival" in Minneapolis, April 1-4, 1999. Northside is bringing in most of the Scandinavian bands which they license and which I love: Hedningarna, Vasen, Troka, Garmarna, Hoven Droven are the big ones. It's going to be like a Scandinavian Woodstock. They are going to premiere a dance theatre piece based on Hedningarna's album TRA; I've been reading about that for a while, they hope to make it a Swedish "Riverdance." Oh, my. I am tempted.
Well, on the same day that I got "From Dublin to Dakar", I also got Hedningarna's latest "Karelia Visa". It has two women vocalists (Sanna and someone whose name I can't recall, but she's good...) and the usual male lineup. It's very very good, a bit less experimental than Tra or Hippjok in that the songs are presented "straight", and the liner notes mention that they'd learned the songs originally from books and now they had managed to travel to Karelia, and hear the way the traditional singers sang them, and that they were honoring that. There is still the intricate harmony between the two women, and still the same mix of instruments, as far as I can tell, but the singing seems to be paramount. Much less jazz- influenced, as well. I like it quite a bit, tough "Kaksi!" is still my favourite Hedningarna album, simply because it was such a revelation when I first heard it.
I've only played "Karelia Visa" a couple of times. I'm still trying to get over my crushed expectations. "Karelia Visa" is a wonderful album, lots of great singing, and if it had been recorded by any other Scandinavian band I'd be delighted with it. But Hedningarna have jettisoned so much of what I loved about the band in the albums KAKSI and TRA: the edge, the drive, the electric guitars, the bagpipes, the furious percussion. No one is going to mistake "Karelia Visa" for a rock album.
Recently I heard a few songs from a band by the name of Komedia, from "someplace in Scandinavia". I wouldn't call them "roots music" exactly, but I was wondering if any of you knew anything about them.
Sounds like the answer is "no." Have you done any web searching?
No, I haven't... I'll try that.
Here's a prod to ask Twila to write something about last month's Frifot show at the Ark. I skipped it because I was just in a grumpy mood that night, and then a week later the new issue of FOLK ROOTS magazine arrived with Frifot on the cover, and a glowing article inside... and Saturday night at the Roberts/Barrand show, the house PA was playing the Frifot CD before and after the concert, and it was very fine. Sigh.
Hi! Well, hmmmm. What to say? They were even more glowing in person, though I don't think there were seventeen whole people in the audience, and at least two of us were journalists. The cow-calling song rang from the rafters, the cow-horn playing (which sounded very much like a bombarde, but also was played very like a saxophone) was cool, and the other traditional instruments were played well. I think Bruce was dreading it, as Ken knows, he dislikes my collection of Scandinavian music, but he loved it. He said that they sounded like a mixture of Celtic and Russian music, which is reasonably true.
Only 17 people in the audience? Argh. Now I *really* regret not going. Thanks, Twila.
Two new collections to note for Twila and maybe others. The first is a collection from the Institute for Folk Music which is part of Finland's Sibelius Academy. I think it's called "Finnish Folk Song Through The Ages." It includes two tracks each from Hedningarna singers Sanna and Tellu, plus two more by the all-woman group Me Naiset, plus a bunch of other stuff. The second is a second promotional sampler from the Northside label, which has been flooding the market with contemporary Scandinavian issues. I hope *somebody* is buying their output, they are putting out more than I can keep up with. Anyway, the new compilation is called NORDIC ROOTS 2 and it should sell for $3 or $4.
The first "Nordic Root" compilation had some good stuff on it.. For $4 I'll probably check out the second one, too, although my purchases so far have been limited to a Hedningarna album or two -- basically I liked, but not enough to go out and buy a bunch..
I've only bought a few used Northside albums, since my funds are rather limited. I'll definitely pick up NORDIC ROOTS 2 though.
I think I have more Northside Recordings than are good for my budget. Grin.
JPP & Vasen, The Ark, April 26 2000: This was the truncated version of the Nordic Nights 2000 tour; fiddler Annbjorg Lien and her band were also touring with JPP and Vasen, but for some arcane reason they needed to be in New York last night. JPP is a Finnish fiddle band who I've been aware of for quite a few years. Four fiddles, upright bass and a harmonium. I think I felt this was a little too much fiddling for my tastes, but Leslie like it quite a lot -- said it was very symphonic -- and she was the one who was motivated to buy the JPP CD. Vasen I liked better with their more varied textures: nyckleharpa (keyed fiddle), viola, guitar and percussion. Lots of the long loping rhythms which they seem to share with the music of Hedningarna and Hoven Droven. At the end of the night, both bands came on stage: ten musicians, six of them playing fiddles or variants. Some nice tunes, some of which swept into breathtaking loud passages. Addendum to my resp:14 about the previous Vasen concert: it appears the Vasen percussionist is of Italian descent, not Sami!!!
Yeah, given the name of Andrea Ferrari, and the handsome looks of an Italian waiter, I can't imagine him being of Sami descent.
i have many of the albums already talked about, plus i have the solo project from sanna kurki-suonio called 'musta'. i read the lyrics ahead of time, and was very excited about the overtly heathen/pagan influence. but once i played it, i was a bit disappointed with al but 2 songs. <polska release, and johda mua> the album had so much potential, but came off kind of wimpy. she even did a cover of the tuuli song from TRA renamed on here as 'TUULEN NOSTATUS' which came in a poor second to the hedningarna version she was on with wimme. i would recommend getting 'wizard women of the north' which has a lot of high energy shrieking in it, as well as some instrumentals. tellu has a few songs on it also. songs from the cold seas, arranged by hector zazou is kind of interesting. actuall, i like it.. but i am not real fond of the jazz overlay on many of the songs.
They should put a promotional sticker with "high energy shrieking" on the collection you mention -- I bet it would just fly out the door..
a friend of mine is going to be in sweden, and i told her to look for a particular album for me. it is 'suden aika' by tellu. i liked her contribution to 'wizard women'. i tried to get it here in the states, but no luck. northside didnt have it either.
It was around in Ann Arbor. I know I have a copy. Great news! Hedningarna is going to be in Detroit in September. I am definitely geeked.
The Tellu album never appeared in Ann Arbor, Twila, I'm pretty sure I got a copy for you. Iggy, take a look at www.digelius.com, which is a Finnish firm specializing in exporting this music to the west. I have not yet tried ordering anything from them, but there is a second Tellu album I want to get. I used to get this sort of thing from ADA in the U.K., but that company has changed hands recently and I haven't seen how they are after the shakeup.
got an english translation of the song manaus by tellu?
I tend not to worry about song translations, iggy, so I probably do not have one for you. I tried to find some information about the Detroit Festival of the Arts, the organization which is sponsoring Hedningarna's appearance in Detroit next month. I could find nothing on this year's festival on the web; don't they know it's 2000 already? The week after their Detroit appearance, Hedningarna is scheduled to do a show at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. At least I know where *that* is; I can always drive to Chicago if I can't get more information about the Detroit appearance.
There's a nice article from 1996 about Tellu at: http://www.rootsworld.com/rs/finland/tellu.html
thanks i will check that out
Frifot, The Ark, January 17 2001: Ale Moller on mandola and a variety of whistle-like things; Lena Willemark on fiddle, octave fiddle (looks like a viola to me); Per Gumundsen on fiddle, and bagpipe for one tune. If I was looking for a quick description, it would be chamber folk, though I'm not sure that applies when Lena backs up to the rear of the stage and lets loose with the vocal technique for calling the cows back from the next valley. There's a familiar Scandinavian feeling to much of the instrumental stuff, though it's much more restrained than Hedningarna. Frifot's previous visit to the ark was discussed in resp:23 & resp:24. Ale Moller made a cryptic reference to the poor turnout last time; this show pulled maybe 150 people, much improved.
You have several choices: