- Cloud Valley Music website -
- Andrew Cronshaw website -
- Andrew Cronshaw MySpace -

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -

Written in fRoots issue 347, 2012


RAGNHILD FUREBOTTEN
Never On A Sunday
Ta:lik TA95CD (2011)

Last autumn there were musically magnificent and big fun shows at Oslo’s Folkelarm expo and at Womex by this combination of sparkling fiddler Ragnhild with truly brilliant arrangements by Helge Sunde, who plays trombonium (an unusual keyed non-slide horn), and saxist Geir Lysne, for trumpets, flugelhorn, trombonium, tuba, alto and tenor sax. I’m convinced they’re by far the most strikingly exportable, festival-storming new emergence from Norway’s music scene, and not just in a folk music context.
     The CD was released in late October 2011, just in time for Womex. In January 2012 it won the folk music category of Spellemannprisen (Norwegian Grammy). But despite prompting it’s taken the record company four months to send one for review. One wonders why when effort and expense was spent on making the album and staging those export-oriented showcase gigs, simple CD-in-envelope was overlooked.
     Now it’s finally here, and it’s absolutely no disappointment.
     The six horn guys are among the very best and most creative in Norway, and they play with the same commitment, energy and fondness for a beautiful, quirky melody as Ragnhild, and witty, virtuosic individualism; this is no bolt-on, music-stand-burdened session brass section.
     The material is based on tunes that are about half Ragnhild’s compositions, half traditional. The eye-wideningly ingenious arrangements expand them hugely, not just surging, twisting and slithering around her sparkling fiddle but leaping to inventive, perfectly blending excursions of their own. Among the up-tempo, the strange, stutteringly demented tunes of two Saltdal polkas clearly challenged particular agility, while the slow tunes such as the hymn O’ Venner Som Forsamlet Er and Ragnhild’s En Ganske Snill Mann revel in gorgeous, stately rich warmth.
     It’s hard to write about music one admires so much, so I’ll quit before – OK, perhaps just after - adjectival overload. A feature will follow in fRoots’ June issue.

www.talik.no


© 2012 Andrew Cronshaw
 

You're welcome to quote from reviews on this site, but please credit the writer and fRoots.

Links:
fRoots - The feature and review-packed UK-based monthly world roots music magazine in which these reviews were published, and by whose permission they're reproduced here.

It's not practical to give, and keep up to date, current contact details and sales sources for all the artists and labels in these reviews, but try Googling for them, and where possible buy direct from the artists.
CDRoots.com in the USA, run by Cliff Furnald, is a reliable and independent online retail source, with reviews, of many of the CDs in these reviews; it's connected to his excellent online magazine Rootsworld.com 

For more reviews click on the regions below

NORDIC        BALTIC        IBERIA (& islands)   

CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE, & CAUCASUS   

OTHER EUROPEAN        AMERICAS        OTHER, AND WORLD IN GENERAL

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -