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EMMA AHLBERG EK Hillevi Caprice CAP 21919
Using what little information she could find from the archives, and then tracking down and interviewing Hillevi Öberg’s 91-year-old son, fiddler Emma Ahlberg Ek pieced together the life of this violinist (1897-1979) who made her way in what was then a man’s world.
Beginning as a folk fiddler in her birth- place, Borgsjö, Medelpad province, Hillevi studied music in Germany, returned to Swe- den, was widowed with two children, and eventually found employment playing for silent films, until the talkies ended that, at which time she moved to Kiruna and opened a music café. The war turned everything upside down, and she ended her days in Uppsala, “an artistic old lady with a red beret and cigarillo”.
In her album, Emma tells Hillevi’s story, in compositions of her own and four dance tunes from Hillevi’s notebook. They’re all fine tunes, evocatively varied in pace, in elegant and pictorial arrangements, Emma’s fine- toned violin joined by double bass, accordeon and percussion, each player drawing textures from their instrument to make sound pictures; for example, the whole ensemble grinding and thundering in the track Kriget, evoking the dark turmoil of war, followed by the serene, melancholic, delicate Livhanksvalsen, depicting music still needed and surviving despite the war, and Borgsjö Postludium, a robust reflection, in her Uppsala old age, on Hillevi’s strength and difficult life.
Even without knowing the story (also told in words in the booklet), it’s a lovely listen.
musikverket.se/capricerecords Andrew Cronshaw
TREVOR MOSS &
HANNAH-LOU Fair Lady London Maiden Voyage MVRC- CD004
An integral part of London’s emerging indie folk scene for a number of years, Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou left the capital for Hastings and are now firmly ensconced in the Sussex seaside town’s thriving local music scene. Three years on from their last album, Fair Lady London is the product of their changed setting and changed priorities.
There is still plenty to showcase the duo’s talent as songwriters here, however. The poignantly bitter-sweet We Should’ve Gone Dancing is immediately and utterly unforget- table while the guitar line on Everything You Need is as beautifully infectious as something that Bert Jansch might have come up with.
For their previous album the duo worked with renowned producer Ethan Johns but now they are back with the trusty 4-track recorder they used on their 2012 album, this time setting up in a castle in the East Sussex countryside. “I’ve never really liked studios,” confesses Moss. “The first one we ever stepped foot in was Olympic as teenagers, the same room as Hendrix, Zeppelin, Stones. I didn’t like it. It felt like a spaceship.”
The lo-fi approach works extremely well and gives the album exactly the kind of understated intimacy the duo’s songs warrant.
Now five albums into their career as a
duo, Fair Lady London sees Trevor Moss and Hannah-Lou continuing to make music that in its own delicate, gentle and thoughtful way continues to demand your attention.
trevormossandhannahlou.com Darren Johnson
DAVE PEABODY & REGINA
MUDRICH Some of These Days Timezone TZ1696
Veteran British bluesman Dave Peabody and Regina Mudrich, a classically trained violinist, have recorded together before, but this is their first full album as a duo.
It’s a thoroughly amiable record, though somewhat tame. All but three of the 17 songs here are cover versions. Peabody uses his deep knowledge of (mostly) 1920s and 1930s blues to revive little-known gems like Tampa Red’s irresistible Don’t Blame Shorty For That and John Lee Hooker’s Little Wheel. These two tracks – both driven along by Tim Penn’s rolling barrelhouse piano – provide the album’s best moments.
Four of the other covers are much more
familiar – Careless Love, After You’ve Gone etc – and add little to the host of versions we already have on disc. For my money, this space would have been better devoted to more of the forgotten treasures Peabody’s been busy unearthing from the archives.
Of the three originals here, the beauti- fully melancholic Please Don’t Tell Me You Love Me shines brightest, guitar and violin locking together to produce a particularly satisfying sound. Picture The Blues is an enjoyable summation of the music’s early decades, fleshed out by the sleeve booklet’s short but informative notes on each song.
Peabody and Mudrich never quite achieve either the swing which Reinhardt and Grappelli brought to this instrumental combo, nor the wild edge Scarlet Rivera’s vio- lin gave Bob Dylan’s Desire. For all Peabody’s talk of Mudrich “flying high” or “ripping through” a song, the sort of exhilarating abandon that implies seems beyond her reach.
facebook.com/PeabodyMudrich Paul Slade Dave Peabody & Regina Mudrich
DOMNA SAMIOU Music From Greece Caprice CAP 21835
Music From Greece is a compilation of songs and some instrumental pieces mostly recorded in Sweden for Caprice in 1979. The song-texts and detailed notes are in English and Greek. Apart from main singer Domna Samiou, there are chorus singers and various combinations of musicians playing tradition- al, acoustic instruments. The production has a studio feel, with voices to the fore; I wish for a greater sense of place – the recordings, while technically fine, lack context.
Samiou (1928-2012) was an important figure in the preservation and diffusion of Greek folk music. Her parents came to Greece from Anatolia in the 1923 forced ‘population exchange’ and she grew up in a poor Athens district along with many others of the recent- ly dispossessed. In this album, the prime focus of course is on her as a singer as well as the songs she chose to record. The singers and musicians sing and play in authentic styles (if I may say that authenticity is a style) with not a hint of borrowings from other musics. Their voices are earthy, ponderous, melancholic, almost in sprechstimme, with a constant micro-waver – rootless yet longing for a root.
Everything is beautiful – the perfor- mances, recordings, songs and package. Yet I feel rather unmoved. The voices don't quite speak to me but rather seem to be speaking into a void, and the playing seems restrained for the sake of perfect renderings yet thereby shying away from the abandon which I sup- pose was the destiny of these songs when performed in their villages together with dancing and singing villagers. For lovers of Greek traditional music, this would be a wel- come addition, but perhaps not its best intro- duction, nor likely to appeal to a wider folk- music audience.
capricerecords.se Nick Hobbs
Photo: Axel Kustner
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