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Written in fRoots issue 314/315, 2009
 

ELISABETH VATN
Piper On The Roof
Heilo HCD 7215 (2009)

Though there is some slim evidence of bagpiping in the past, Norway is one of the few countries in Europe that doesn’t really have bagpipes. But here’s an album by a Norwegian bagpiper, possibly the first, and a very classy one at that.
      Elisabeth Vatn’s bagpipes are at its heart, but they give and take in a constantly varying big-sounding production with a four-man core team of Norway’s top players, from the bands of Mari Boine, Karl Seglem and others: producer Gjermund Silset on bass, guitars, hammered dulcimer, Hammond, synths and more, percussionist Helge Norbakken, Geir Sundstøl on pedal, lap and dobro steel guitars, banjo and harmonica, and ace guitarist Olav Torget.
      Acquisition of her first bagpipe in Macedonia 1993 led to Elisabeth playing and researching Swedish pipes. She adds long-droned medieval pipes also from the lathe of her usual maker, Swedish-resident German Alban Faust, and the pleasingly duduk/ba-wu sounding Meråker clarinet, a modern version of Norway’s pastoral clarinet.
      The opening track is a fanfare, with a wide airiness of spacious rock pulse and an uplifting exuberance slightly reminiscent of the glory days of Alan Stivell’s early band. In largely self-composed music she goes on to draw on Swedish tradition, quotes from Galician traditional gaita tunes, and inspiration from Scottish Highland pipe playing American jazzer the late Rufus Harley Jr.
Sámi singer Niko Valkeapää and Norwegian traditional singer Øyonn Groven Myhren contribute vocals in their respective languages (the latter to a Norwegian version of Danny Boy that’s there mainly because of its lyric line “the pipes are calling”). In the closer, the anthemic Bagcarolle, Sundstøl’s pedal steel soars with the pipes.

      www.grappa.no


© 2009 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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