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Written in Folk Roots issue 190, 1999
 

SVART KAFFE
Fransk Rost
L’Autre Distribution AD0077C (1997)

Singer Eva Rune couldn’t make the well-received short 1998 British tour, on which Svart Kaffe (“Black Coffee”) played as both concert and dance band, so French musician Jacques Mayoud deputised, contributing fiddle, sälgflöjt and mbira.
      Fransk Rost (“French Roast”), though, features the current normal line-up, which consists of two members of the Svart Kaffe which made the 1992 first album - melodeon, sälgflöjt (willow overtone whistle) and mbira player Jean-Pierre Yvert who, having studied Swedish music at Malung Folk High School, formed the band so he could keep playing it, and US born ex-Groupa bass clarinet and recorder player Bill McChesney. When the band re-formed they were joined by Eva Rune, fiddler Maria Jonsson, and Kalabra’s Simon Stålspets on bouzouki, harmonica and jew’s harp.
     Despite the mix of nationalities, the music here, both traditional and band-made and consisting largely of polskas, waltzes, schottisches, ballads and other songs, is more typically Swedish in sound than the slightly Africanised twin-mbira and multiple sälgflöjter British tour lineup. The approach is less high-intensity than that of many Swedish roots bands, an open, exploratory texture of varying lead instruments and interweaving instrumental and vocal lines.


© 1999 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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