root salad Dreamers’ Circus
The Danish-Swedish trio threw away the safety net and got spontaneous, Chris Nickson hears.
S
ometimes a change of approach can yield wonderful results. It’s certain- ly paid off for Nordic trio (two Danes and a Swede) Dreamers’ Cir- cus. In nine years together, they’ve won a pair of Albums of the Year at the Danish Folk Awards. But for their fourth release, Rooftop Sessions, they wanted to try something quite different.
“We made it more or less by jamming,” explains cittern player and guitarist Ale Carr. “The earlier albums were more arranged, and we’d been playing those tunes for years. This was more spontaneous, they had more thought and preparation. Now we trust each other, we know each other well. So we can show up and wait for an idea and build it up. The one thing is that we have to be very honest.”
It was something they’d tried before, making music for a computer game and for a documentary. This time, when they entered the studio, only the track Rooftop Session Part 1 was ready to record.
“We do miss once in a while,” adds vio-
linist Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen, who has another career as a member of the interna- tionally-renowned Danish String Quartet. “It’s a risk, and we discarded a lot that was- n’t suitable; the inspiration wasn’t there. So it can be frustrating at times. We hope peo- ple can hear how this music was created.”
But it fits into the Dreamers’ Circus ethos that “we’re just playmates,” accord- ing to Nikolaj Busk, who handles all the key- boards. “We enjoy playing together and we try to create music out of having fun together. We’re ambitious, too, we try to reach a high level and we take inspiration from great masters. Really, we try to com- bine those two things.”
While Dreamers’ Circus used a Bach Vio- lin Partita as the basis for a track on their first album, the real common factor between all three members is the deep well of the Nordic folk tradition. Indeed, folk music brought them together during a folk festival in Copenhagen in 2009. Carr and Sørensen were playing tunes in the corner of a pub when Busk sat down and joined them on piano.
“Two jam sessions and we had the trio,” Sørenson remembers. “It’s the foun- dation.”
“It’s social music, interaction, the dialect of the music, the dancing and the singing,” agrees Carr. We all grew up with this cultural baggage and we use the heritage.”
And, like virtually every instrumental band to emerge in the last thirty years with
roots in folk music, they acknowledge a debt to the pioneers – Väsen.
“We’re a product of what they’ve done,” Busk notes, “both in challenging tra- dition and what we come from. We had a period where we had to play a new tune every night, an original. We’re at a level where we have a large repertoire and we can play good concerts, but we like to keep challenging ourselves.”
That’s exactly what they’ve done with Rooftop Sessions, and with it they’ve revi- talised their sounds, and themselves. Working from scratch in a studio, building up a tune from nothing is an expensive proposition, but the album itself is proof that it works.
“We’d just released Second Movement and we wanted to do something new,” recalls Busk. “You need an open mind to make it work, and the best way is to go up on the roof and look out. It’s a much better view.”
“And don’t be afraid of heights!” Carr adds. “Originally, we’d booked dates in the studio for film syncing. That was the start of the experiment, and we used some of it in Rooftop Session Part II. After that we took a break, went back for a few days. We didn’t mean to make an album of it. A lot of the recording was done live, and we used a lot of different instruments.”
There’s more guitar from Carr, touches of Farfisa organ and synthesizer. But, Carr says, “part of finding inspiration is using a
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new instrument. You avoid normal licks. It’s fun, a discovery. And we’re attracted to new sounds. We travel with synthesizers now.”
“We fell in love with the studio in Copenhagen where we recorded,” Busk says. “They have plenty of instruments that we began using.”
A
ll three members have plenty of other musical demands on their times. But Dreamers’ Circus has become a priority for them all.
“We do this for the fun,” Carr explains. “This band was never meant to be. The rea- son we’re still playing together is because we have to. At the start we played one or two gigs because we enjoyed it. And our lives have altered to make things happen; it’s been a condition of the band. We man- age it somehow and we’re grateful for it.”
And what’s next for Dreamers’ Circus? After all, 2019 will mark their 10th anniver- sary. “We don’t know,” Busk replies. “Let’s find a rooftop. We’re writing new material, but no recording plans, although we’re talk- ing about an anniversary album. We’re touring a lot, including the US next year.”
“We do have a dream,” Carr adds.
“Rune’s father is from the Faroe Isles. We’re talking about going there for a week, walk- ing, writing, playing…”
And looking from the rooftops, with- out a doubt.
dreamerscircus.com F
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