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strong and interesting melodies that are basically so good that you can play it on a drone. One band that proved this to me not so long ago was Leveret. They’re doing it. They play traditional tunes that don’t need chords. The moment they put chords under it becomes even nicer, but it’s not necessary.”
“I think the most difficult thing about making music is to create space in the music by playing less and really listening to each other. If the guitar is already playing a chord is it absolutely necessary to play it on the accordeon? Or maybe it makes it even bet- ter if we play it exactly the same. We’ve been really thinking about these elements. Momentum is the first CD where we did this very actively, especially with the hurdy-gurdy. The guitar has the role of playing the chords and harmonies; the accordeon should take the melody because it has that clear attack; so the hurdy-gurdy should be like a cello – between the guitar and accordeon.”
“On the second album Parachute there was no space. What worked really well was to remove all drones,” is Koen’s succinct summing up.
“I had a feeling that we were all a bit more adult,” reckons Hartwin. “You can hear that we don’t care so much anymore about showing off individually! Doesn’t matter if you only play one note for half a minute, if it’s in the right place that’s the most important. It’s about playing together instead of being individual instrumentalists.”
“But the question was actually about influences wasn’t it? I’ve always listened to a lot of folk music. And I go through periods where I’m really into a certain specific kind of folk music or sub-genre. And you can always hear it in the CDs. You can hear Blowzabella in the first CD. For the last album I listened to Sigur Rós and Spiro. And also Talisk, Breabach, Rura… These super- famous Scottish bands who play super-fast patterns that repeat, and I tried to bring that together with the harmonies of Sigur Rós. I don’t know if it worked.”
t’s interesting you mention Spiro and Breabach (who inspired perhaps the best tune on the new album – End- less Dancing). When I met you at Sid- mouth FolkWeek I was surprised by how familiar you were with most of the artists on the bill. How did you discover English and Scottish traditional music?
I “We were watching it from over the sea!” teases Ward.
“No, no. We grew up in a country where everything that came from another country was definitely good and every- thing you have in your own country is defi- nitely shit!” Hartwin sighs. “And we had access to a lot of things. We could go every summer to a folk festival where we’d see the best of the best, because Belgium is still a rich country that’s able to book famous bands. Not so good is that it’s real- ly hard to get on a main stage in Belgium
because they keep booking these really famous projects who are expensive, because they believe it’s definitely better.”
“Sometimes I wonder if the people who go every year to the same festival, whether they get to see anything different. I had the same feeling at Sidmouth. You had the sort of audience who are always coming there, year after year. And we have the same in Flanders, and I wonder if they actually know what they have in their own country. Because they are so used to seeing the ‘best’ of Scan- dinavia, the ‘best’ of England, the ‘best’ of Canada… And that’s good but it’s just one thing. But that’s how we got access to all this stuff, so we thank the organisers of the Flemish festivals. Thank you!”
Underlying everything you say is this sense of ambition. But what is that ambi- tion for? What’s the goal? Clearly you don’t want to be rich because that’s never gonna happen!
“Of course!” laughs Ward. “What’s very important for me is good conditions to play music in. So you can bring your music to audiences the way it’s meant to be. In the first years we have played shows that are not well organised and we don’t know if people go home and maybe they’ve not got the full story. And since 2016 it’s getting better and better. We’re playing shows in good conditions and peo- ple are really getting it.”
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