About eight years ago I found a record in the bargain bin at Amoeba Records on Haight St. It was called "Music Cheaper Than Food" and was a $2.95 sampler of acts on Northside Records, which imports Scandinavian pop-folk acts into the US. The entire album was an ear-opener, but one act, a Swedish band called Väsen (VEH-sin) was heads and shoulders above the rest. So much so that when I heard that they were playing in Medford, OR, almost 400 miles away, I packed the car and took a road trip up. Norma, good sport that she is, came along, having no idea why.
Väsen was far better live than on record. I'd never heard anything like them. They played viola, lightly amplified 12-string, and an amazing kludge called a nyckelharpa, which is a cross between a Hurdy-gurdy and a string section. They had begun life 25 years ago as a dance band that played Swedish traditional music (sort of a Viking New Lost City Ramblers), but have become superb composers in their own right, and the music has become something unclassifiable and all their own. Some of it rocks, and some of it is achingly lovely.
In the last eight years we've become like Deadheads about these guys, sitting in the Freight and Salvage ticket line for an hour and a half so that we can sit in the first row. Driving to Felton to see them at a Mexican restaurant, and to Santa Cruz to catch an amazing show they did in the sanctuary of a Catholic church. We've seen them ten times and they've only been good once. The other nine times they were transcendentally great.
Here's a taste of the contemplative side of Väsen. Itäs a road tune, written in an hour by the guitarist and the viola player, while they waited for the nyckelharpa player to come back from an errand. It's an AABB traditional folk form, but with a C section added so that they can regroup.
The nyckelharpa plays the melody for most of it while the viola player dances around him. The guitarist, who is the key to their sound for me, reharmonizes the tune on each pass, so his stuff is what builds the tune emotionally. Listen all the way through and listen on good speakers, and pay attention to Roger Tallroth, the 12-stringer who will play rhythm, harmony, and will add a bassline that continually changes as the tune progresses. Olov Johannson, the nyckelharpa player anchors the melody while Tallroth and Michael Marin, the viola player improvise. I can't get enough of this stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsFhRtmOow8
7 comments:
BEAUTIFUL!
Sounds like a Celtic version of Phil Spectre "Wall Of Sound". Tuning looks like it would be a serious nightmare.Kind of like a Hurdy Gurdy with a bow instead of a crank. What's the box thing on the acoustic guitar?
Gary, probably a battery operated tuner
"What's the box thing on the acoustic guitar?"
Tuner. BTW, Roger's 12 is in a custom tuning that he cooked up himself. He has a couple hundred disciples who are learning to use it.
ADADAD, which makes his lowest note a whole tone lower than that on a baritone guitar, and his highest is only a whole tone lower than on a standard guitar. He can, and often does play rhythm, harmony and bass.
Nyckelharpa is the Swedish national instument, and Johannson won first place in their first national championship in 1990. There is a carving dating back 700 years, on the wall of a medieval church, of a guy playing one. The modern Chromatic Nyckelharpa is capable of some seriously sophisticated music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zs3aUCM8BX8
Here's a newly built version of the old medieval instrument
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bpcDe7mEXM&feature=related
The Bach is absolutely beautiful.
Remember when Johnny McEuen used to play Bach on his banjo? Ah, those were the days.
Here's a web site to explore.
http://www.nyckelharpa.com/shop/page.asp?folderID=shop&contentID=harpa
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