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Written in Folk Roots issue 184, 1998

TRIAKEL
Triakel
Xource XOUCD 121 (1998)

SÄLTA
Sälta
Amigo AMCD 736 (1997)

Triakel is an acoustic trio of Garmarna singer Emma Härdelin, Hoven Droven fiddler Kjell-Erik Eriksson and Hoven Droven’s new member Janne Strömstedt, using just voice, fiddle and harmonium for, as they put it, “42 minutes and 55 seconds of uncensored violent, sudden death and the purest of love”. The album was recorded by former Hoven Droven trumpeter Gustav Hylén at his Home Studio in the county of Jämtland, the musicians’ home district, and it’s from there, and from Hälsingland further south, that the majority of these songs and ballads come. There’s an assured, light touch, and a clear identity, in this “simple, small-scale music with strongly narrative texts”. Härdelin’s singing is direct, with slight grace-noting twists, and Eriksson’s playing has tremendous vitality and lift, while the harmonium has a calming effect with its surging, chugging chords; between the three there’s a balance of lively simplicity.

      More overtly developmental is Sälta, comprising piano-player Risto Holopainen, fiddle and viola player Hadrian Prett and two members of another promising new Swedish roots band, Kalabra - percussionist Sebastian Printz-Werner and singer and flautist Ulrika Bodén - in ballads and tunes drawn from the wider Swedish and Finnish-Swedish tradition, with some new compositions. Holopainen’s piano-playing makes links with Printz-Werner’s percussion and mbira, and he extends the tone colours by strumming the strings or wedging pieces of rubber between them to damp and select harmonics. Prett’s fiddling shows his command of both new music and the turns and hesitations of deep traditional playing, and light-voiced Bodén’s rising prominence is reflected in her membership of at least three notable new groups (her third being Rosenbergs Sjua - indeed Susanne Rosenberg’s ballad Mor Märta is this album’s closing track).


© 1998 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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