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Written in fRoots issue 257, 2004
 

KRISTINE HEEBØLL
Trio Mio
Go’ Go0204

Some fiddlers make CDs that are simply collections of well played tunes; OK for picking from rather than normally listening to all the way through in one go. Others, rarer - for example Norway’s Susanne Lundeng or Annbjørg Lien, and an elite few parallels in other countries – make albums that while certainly fiddle-centred are more shapely, thought-through works, starting somewhere and finishing somewhere else and making a complete, satisfying journey.
      Danish fiddler Kristine Heebøll’s Trio Mio begins as if it might be one of the former type, with a polska for her father’s 60th birthday. But as it unfolds it becomes clear it’s one of the latter, indeed a prime example. As the title indicates, apart from a couple of tracks augmenting Heebøll’s fiddle to an exquisitely arranged string quartet, and a couple with hand percussion, there is a core group of three players: Heebøll, Nikolaj Busk on piano and Swede Jens Ulvsand on bouzouki and guitar. Their tightly-woven interplay and lively energy on a wonderfully varied set of strong, intricate and beautiful tunes is a joy. Busk goes straight to the top of the international league for piano-drivers, brilliantly expanding harmonic and rhythmic possibilities in the tunes, but never going off at a flash tangent, always perfectly integrated with the other instruments.
      This isn’t a “fiddle-tunes” album; it has a strongly rooted identity, with the rich, extended and explored melodies often springing from traditional stories and rhythm structures, but they are varied in pace and no slaves to folk-dance form. The effortless complexity of maturity runs throughout, they abound with interesting corners and elegant changes, and one looks to the credits expecting to see a range of composers with probably some trad.arr. It comes a surprise to find that with one exception, the penultimate track, they’re all Heebøll’s own compositions. Not only a very fine fiddler/violinist, then, but also a writer of extraordinary talent and understanding whose music is bound to be picked up by many other players if she and this album get the wide hearing they deserve.
      And, just as it appears that this is one of those rare instrumental albums that doesn’t yearn for a voice, in as a bonus comes the absolutely suited, delicate singing of Julie Maria Larsen in the aforementioned track 12, a serene evensong hymn, before the closer, the simple Epilog with its nice touch of vinyl noise and stylus lift-off.


© 2004 Andrew Cronshaw



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