root salad Fribo


Norway meets Scotland in the foundations of this increasingly original band, finds Andrew Cronshaw.


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Norwegian singer and doyenne of the no-hole whistle seljefløyte who moved to Edinburgh for six months and has been there for ten years. A 12-string guitarist and singer who was one of the first students at Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. An Edinburgh-born fiddler and singer who graduated from the new American Roots Program set up by fiddler Matt Glaser at Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she was taught by Darol Anger, Bela Fleck and Bruce Molsky, and now lives in New York. A Swedish drummer whose dancer parents took him to the annual spelmansstämma in Burträsk and for whom seeing Finland’s JPP when he was 12 was a turning point. Anne Sofie Linge Valdal, Ewan MacPherson, Hannah Read and Magnus Lundmark are today’s Fribo.


The trio of Anne Sofie, Ewan and fid- dler Sarah-Jane Summers formed the band in Edinburgh in 2003, playing a mix of Nor- wegian and Scottish traditional material. They named it after a point on the map more or less between the two countries, a farm on the Orkney island of Westray. Magnus made it a quartet a couple of years ago, and Hannah took Sarah-Jane’s place part-way through the recording of the second album, Happ.


In their early days I confess I’d thought of Fribo as a North Sea bridging project band; no bad thing, considering the histor- ical connections between Norway and Scotland. But instead, as did the late lamented Swedish/British quartet Swåp, but with a different sound and approach, they’ve turned into a distinctively original and impressive combo, and one which is still evolving.


“Initially we were gluing stuff togeth-


er, really,” recounts Ewan, “and then we all started to learn a bit more, and we realised that we want to have the beauty and space of the Norwegian music, and some of the modes that were going on in there, and we also wanted to have the drive from Celtic music. I loved that in the Celtic thing. So I started writing stuff that was a mixture of it all really.”


He, Sarah-Jane and Anne Sofie wrote much of the material on Happ – tunes and songs – the rest being traditional. “Now we’re in a transition from the music we’re playing at the moment, which was put together a long time ago with different band members. So we’re quite keen to move on. Because Hannah’s bringing a lot of stuff from America, rich stuff, with a lot more chords than we’re used to hearing.”


Ewan’s drive comes principally from his 12-string guitar.


“I used to play mandola, and I had the six-string guitar, and the mandolin – it was just too much stuff to carry around. I want- ed to be able to keep that double-string sound, so it was easier just to have two instruments.” There’s an obvious compari- son to be made with Roger Tallroth’s 12- string propulsion of Swedish power-trio Väsen. “I’m a fan of Roger, and I have spo- ken with him about how he approaches things. But obviously you’ve got to try and play like yourself, haven’t you?”


I also hear influences, probably sub- conscious, in Fribo’s music from the mighty work of Sweden’s Ale Möller and Frifot, and perhaps early Groupa.


Hannah, coming from bluegrass and old-time, has been discovering Nordic music with Fribo. “I got really into Väsen a couple of years ago. And Annbjørg Lien, and Swåp. And then we went to Norway last year; that was my first time over there. And it was my first time to Sweden last week. So it’s all pretty new to me. I’m excited to get into more stuff.”


Annbjørg Lien has been an influence on Anne Sofie too. She and Annbjørg are both from the west coast Norwegian town of Ålesund. “I saw her now and then when I was growing up. She had a massive impact on me, in the way that she did things, the way she dared to step outside boundaries, and the way she kept her tradition, her background, so strongly. She’s been a big inspiration, and that’s why I really want to continue making new music and integrat- ing it with things like American old-timey.”


“I


don’t know whether I just hadn’t noticed it, but the crossover seems to be growing,” Ewan muses. “I see people like Bruce Molsky coming over and playing with Annbjørg, and the Väsen guys going over to North America and doing all these camps.”


I ask what Norwegians think of


Fribo. “I don’t think the first album made much impact in Norway,” considers Ewan. “I think it’s because we were still trying to work out what we were doing. And some of the material was more known, over there. We hadn’t quite honed it by that point. I think it’s going to take a wee while, but people there are starting to realise what we’re doing is valid and good now. I think we just need to keep pushing at that window, and play more there.”


“And getting the seljefløyte a bit more known”, adds Anne Sofie. She’s a very skilful player of note-bending, jump- ing, winding natural-scale tunes on this minimal instrument, the Norwegian ver- sion of the no-hole whistle that herders across the mountain ranges of northern Europe and beyond used to whittle, usual- ly out of green willow. “It’s such an amaz- ing, magical instrument. That’s my thing at the moment, to get that going. And to find songs from areas of Norway that don’t have much vocal tradition; for instance, where I come from, where it’s mostly just fiddles.”


www.fribo.co.uk F 15 f


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