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Written in fRoots issue 277, 2006
 

SVART KAFFE
Tretår
Nomis NMCD03 (2005)

Svart Kaffe’s gigging and recording career has been fitful and its membership variable, partly because French founder-member Jean-Pierre Yvert, melodeonist and maker and player of the no-hole natural-scale whistle known in Sweden as a sälgflöjt, lived in France. But a couple of years ago he moved permanently to Sweden, and the result is this new album, which elevates and consolidates the band as a significant one on the Swedish scene.
      He’s joined in the current trio by long-time Kaffe-person Simon Stålspets (of the excellent but now defunct Kalabra), on guitar, harmonica, jew’s harp and one of the new forms of mandola, this one with extended bass strings, that have become popular in today’s Swedish roots music. The new member is Louise Schultz, who brings not only her sprightly vocals and fiddling but quite a few of the lyrics.
      They have a distinctive approach influenced by Yvert’s perspective, in material that’s Swedish traditional or new-written on largely traditional lines but showing their wider awareness – for example Yvert’s Gallic-shaped waltz Dansa New York or his winding, hesitating tune for former band member Maria Jonsson, Röd Skorpion. In consistently strong and non-obvious material the arrangements are varied and ingenious but very natural. The core sound of voice, melodeon, fiddle and frets is further expanded by Stålspets’ harmonica and jew’s-harp, and Yvert’s long experience with sälgflöjt make its swooping natural scales a key component.


© 2006 Andrew Cronshaw



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