103 f
It’s a quartet, with Kivimäki on vocals and her trademark insistent chugging push- pull 5-row and toy accordeon, Sväng’s Eero Grundström on gutsy, glitchy electronics and vocals, and Reeta-Kaisa Iles, Kivimäki’s Puhti duo colleague, and Tuomas Juntunen on vocals. It’s not really Hedningarna-like – its vocals tend towards rappy-spoken with sung melodic phrases coasting over, and it has more electronic manipulation and cut-up editing – but it has kinship in its grainy, pow- erful non-rock energy, and there’s plenty of space in that field that hasn’t been colonised as much as it could be. The material is part traditional, part band-composed, with strong roots in the hypnotic, narrow-compass melodies of Karelian traditional music, imbu- ing them with modern power and lyrics of the post-electricity, industrial age.
The latest of their videos, a sort of spoof-
Western treatment of the album’s opening track Hummani Hei, shows just how commit- ted, theatrical, witty and self-image-effacing the band’s members, barely recognisable in dirt and bad dentistry (not their own), are prepared to be.
nordic-notes.de Andrew Cronshaw
EMILYN STAM & FILIPPO
GAMBETTA Shorelines Borealis BCD252
Well, this is the best thing to trouble my optical disc drive in many a moon. Filippo Gam- betta is a diatonic accordeon player from Genoa, blessed with formidable technique, dynamic expressiveness, and a fertile musical imagination.
The nearest musical reference point is his com- patriot, sometime bandmate Riccardo Tesi, echoes of whose playing can be heard in the tarantella Taggiasca. His partner here is Emilyn Stam, an equally rule-bending player of dance music from Toronto, on fiddle and piano. Despite the occasional nature of their collabo- ration, the two have a superbly intuitive understanding. Like our own Leveret they establish a theme and then weave improvisa- tions around it, and the results are fascinating, revealing more at each hearing – I listened to this twice through, back-to-back, one evening.
Tracks are mostly original compositions
by either party, plus a smattering of tradition- al tunes and mentor Oliver Shroer’s graceful title track. Dance forms including mazurka, bourrée and waltz are filtered through mod- ern art music and jazz, with tricky time signa- tures, syncopations and unexpected twists in both melody and harmony around every street corner. If this sounds a bit clever-clever, don’t worry – it’s never impenetrably abstruse, and is actually pretty emotional at times. Moods change in a flash, from Gam- betta’s lyrical polska Aneto to the broken- rhythm attack of Stam’s On The Dock, then directly to an exuberant pair of polkas. It’s beautifully recorded, the diamond-bright precision of the inevitable Castagnari con- trasting nicely with the more rounded tone of keyboard or strings. Final track The Secret is a gorgeously meandering musical conversa- tion on which to close a terrific album. The quirky dancing animals depicted in the cover art are a delight as well.
Hear a track on this issue’s fRoots 71 compilation.
emilystam.com
filippogambetta.com Brian Peters
ASTRAKAN PROJECT Inês Astrakan Project
Astrakan Project – cover-fea- tured in fR396 – are singer Simone Alves and, on gui- tars, oud, violin, percussion, drums and programming, Yann Gourvil. They’re Bre- tons, but as her surname sug- gests, Alves is of a Por- tuguese family. This album’s
music is in the Breton gwerz ballad-form, and sung in Breton, but it tells a famous Por- tuguese story – that of 14th-century Galician noblewoman Inês de Castro.
The love affair between Inês and Pedro, heir to the Portuguese throne and already married to Constance of Castile, was forbid- den by his father, King Alfonso IV, and indeed was ended by her murder under his orders. Pedro tracked down and killed two of the murderers, and when he became King Pedro I he divulged that he’d secretly married Inês. Legend, true or not, has it that he then had her corpse exhumed and crowned as his queen. They’re both buried in the monastery of Alcobaça.
The songs, all by Alves and Gourvil, don’t attempt to tell the whole story, just nine scenes from it, using a mixture of evidence and imagination. Some are in the insistent, phrase-repeating form of traditional ballad dance-singing, in which instrumental phrases echo the vocal lines, while others use winding traditional-form melodies that suit the pro- jection of descriptive narrative. Alves’s strong voice swirls over meaty instrumentation, the acoustic instruments intensified by program- ming. You can hear the concluding track on this issue’s fRoots 71 compilation.
The CD comes in the back of a substan- tial long-format paperback book of colourful illustrations by Alves, with song texts and scene descriptions in Breton, French and English.
astrakanproject.com Andrew Cronshaw
Astrakan Project
FARA Times From Times Fall Fara Music FARA002
Fara are an all-women Orkney quartet of three fid- dles and a piano – Jennifer Austin (piano, keyboard, fid- dle, vocals), Kristan Harvey (fiddle, vocals), Jeana Leslie (fiddle, lead vocal) and Catri- ona Price (fiddle, vocals). The music in their second album
is entirely self-composed, with the songs drawing lyrics from the words of famous Orkney poets.
Fara combine graceful, elegant, acoustic Scottish traditional style with vivid elements of Americana country/blues, and they do it in a polished, seamless way that feels very Orca- dian, reflecting the influence of their mentor Douglas Montgomery (of Saltfishforty/The Chair). Maxwell's Light is an absorbing and evocative composition by Jennifer Austin in which the piano gracefully intertwines with the accompanying fiddles with a classical poise and delicacy of touch. Frances' Day is an exquisitely beautiful slow air on fiddle, with gossamer-delicate, sensitive accompaniment from the keyboard and other fiddles; it was composed by Catriona Price for her sister’s wedding day. At The Ebb is a lingeringly beautiful slow air composed by Jeana Leslie.
The thrilling tune set The Depliction has soaring fiddles, driving piano and a cinematic sweep and swagger that cries out for some- one to use it in a film soundtrack. Speir Thoo The Wast Wind is an Orcadian dialect song with dramatic, rhythmic fiddle accompani- ment and strong Americana flavours. The opening instrumental set The Port Polka – hear it on this issue’s fRoots 71 compilation – has bright, invigorating variation in pace and tone, with engaging harmonies and bluesy Americana licks on both fiddle and piano. This album is a masterly balance of reflection and celebration.
faramusic.co.uk Paul Matheson
Photo: © Judith Burrows
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