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Written in fRoots issue 269, 2005
 

SWÅP
Du Da

NorthSide NSD6085 (2005)

OLA BÄCKSTRÖM
Boggdansen

Giga GCD-68 (2005)

KALLE ALMLÖF & JONNY SOLING
Öst Och Väst

Giga GCD-74 (2005)

Perhaps it’s because of the other involvements of its members, or perhaps because not enough people have seen it live, but Swåp doesn’t seem to have had the acclaim it deserves. This is a great band. The parts – accordionist Karen Tweed, guitarist Ian Carr and Dalarna fiddlers Ola Bäckström and Carina Normansson – together form a beautifully-matched whole that’s different from any of the work they do separately.
      This new album, studio-recorded but full of the energy, wit and strong tunes of their live performances, expands on an aspect only hinted at in the past – the excellence of Carina Normansson as a vocalist.
      The five vocal items here would identify her as in the Swedish top rank as a singer even if she weren’t already up there as a fiddler. After the opening instrumental onslaught of Bäckström’s Dalpillen her spirited vocal in the dance-game song Fattig Änka even draws the rest of the band into singing. Then into a Tweed tune and two Carr compositions, a jig and a polska that, like all the band’s material, manage to combine fascinating melodic complexity with a mighty, infectious swing.
      The waltz-tempo ring dance song Midsommarvisa leads into another series of memorable, multifaceted tunes variously by Normansson, Bäckström and Carr (another of his house-envy tunes). In the traditional ballad Så Rider Jag Meg, Normansson’s rich, assured voice, light on the surface but with a deep resonance, is arranged with dark shifting strings, grinding accordion and Carr’s guitar moving between silvery picking and power chords of his usual mystifying but acutely effective construction. For the following vocally intricate fast Brudpolska Från Orsa she wrote the words, as she did to Bäckström’s melody for the ironic prescription to Se På TV (Watch TV), and the album closes with one of her tunes, written for Falu Spelmanslag, the Falun fiddlers’ club that she leads.
      In Du Da four musicians contribute equally and with intuitive communication in the exquisite balance that makes a band special, and after the UK-release delays of its (recommended) predecessor Mosquito Hunter it shows signs of being the turning point at which this band’s true stature is generally realised.

      Ola Bäckström made a strong album for Giga back in 1994, accompanied by other musicians including Normansson and percussionist Björn Tollin, his colleague in the musicians and dancers group Boot. This time, though, in the core tradition of Swedish fiddling he’s entirely solo, in twenty-three tracks of tunes mainly from his home region of Ore: polskas, some marches, a gånglåt and a waltz. He’s a luminously articulate fiddler, with a light, airy tone, and his playing always makes sense and opens up and refreshes the tunes.

      In his youth, bewitched by the music he heard at the Bingsjö fiddlers’ gathering, Ola went on a course at the folk high school in Malung, taught by Jonny Soling. Soling, from Orsa in east Dalarna, is a fiddler who has influenced many, as is Kalle Almlöf from Malung, which is in west Dalarna.
      Both Soling and Almlöf were students of Ole Hjorth in 1976 at the first fiddle course at Stockholm’s Royal College of Music, over 25 years the two have taught over 5000 fiddlers at Malung, in week-long summer courses or for longer periods, evolving a folk music teaching method that works so well that the courses are doubly over-subscribed. They have performed together in various contexts for over thirty years, and were involved during the 1970s in the early days of the Swedish folk music boom, playing in some of the first adventures with organist Merit Hemmingson and with Ulf Gruvberg and Carin Kjellman of Folk Och Rackare.
      The county of Dalarna isn’t very big, but in the old days travel was less easy than it is now, and the distinct styles and repertoires that evolved have persisted. Their album of duets draws tunes from both sides of Dalarna; mainly of course polskas but also gånglåts, waltzes, a march and an east-west fusion wedding tune they wrote between them. The playing quality goes without saying, and the two fiddles blend with complete mutual understanding.


© 2005 Andrew Cronshaw



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