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Written in Folk Roots issue 129, 1994

KEBNEKAJSE
Electric Mountain
Resource RESCD 503 (1993)

NORRLÅTAR
Sign of the Raven
Resource RESCD 506 (1993)

ARBETE & FRITID
Deep Woods
Resource RESCD 501 (1993)

LARS HOLLMER
The Siberian Circus
Resource RESCD 502 (1993)

RAMLÖSA KVÄLLAR
Nights without Frames
Resource RESCD 507 (1993)

Swedish record companies Silence, MNW and Amalthea have between them created two new labels, Xource and Resource, to facilitate the flow of their releases to foreign distributors (such as Direct and ADA in the UK). 1992/3 albums such as Hedningarna's Kaksi! and Den Fule's Lugumleik are now on Xource; Resource is the label for the selective repackaging of earlier material, and here's some of the first wave, bursting with remarkable music. It's no illusion that something's happening across the North Sea, and has been happening, largely un-noticed by the outside world, for some time.

     Scandinavian-rooted music has now evolved way past folk-rock, but Sweden was the home of one of the great folk-rock bands, Kebnekajse (or Kebnekaise), a roughly nine-piece with two drummers that toured the country constantly in a big bus and made the sort of exuberantly crashing, richly melodic and just plain lovable music that would draw the feet of anyone within earshot. Largely instrumental, with occasional cheerfully approximate wordless vocalising, it still works very well, and this album (compiled from 1973's Kebnekajse, 1975's III, and some unreleased 1976/7 material), full-blooded, thick with strong traditional tunes, would for anyone excited by the early days of British folk-rock (and perhaps experiencing a sense of lost direction and diminishing returns in its later years), make a good access point to the seductive forms and rhythms of the dance music which is at the root of much of Sweden's current musical adventurousness.

     Norrlåtar's most recent album, En Malsvelodi (1990), was for me a revelation, a complete entity sucking you into its wild flow of energy and unpredictable ideas. Sign of the Raven is, like all the albums in this review, a compilation, in this case from seven of the band's albums, so the variety is, inevitably, more of a patchwork than a flow, but it's still bursting with innovation. The members of Norrlåtar (meaning "tunes from the north") are based around Luleå, in northern Sweden; founder member Hasse Alatalo comes from the Finnish-speaking community in the area, and it shows in the band's music, which has since 1974 been widening its range of influences across Scandinavia and beyond, casting new shades of light on Swedish music. Describing instrumentation won't give you any idea of how it sounds, but if I were a DJ I'd probably play Sepän Sälli as a taster, and that features a crackling, booming noise like wooden wheels on gravel, deep creaking vocal intoning in Finnish, wild fiddle, flute, jaws harp, nyckelharpa, counterpoint yelling, meaty drums and percussion.

     A searcher for the roots of the current free-thinking in Swedish music would undoubtedly come across Arbete & Fritid ("Work & Leisure"), a band of varying line-up whose only fixed point was cellist Ove Karlsson. Deep Woods is compiled from its eight albums, released between 1970 and 1979, which, according to the sleeve notes, could never really reflect the inspiring tossing around of ideas and traditions for which the gigs were so appreciated. There's enough wild adventuring to give the gist here, though, from fairly "straight" collaboration with fiddler Anders Rosén, through Indian-influenced drones, eccentric bar boogie, improvisation over a pattern, grinding dadaist vocals, abrupt changes, huge noises, honking brass, generally making forays into the area of a mutual catalysis between a deep understanding of traditional music that knows that, like a shark, it's very tough but it begins to die if it doesn't move forward, and a jazz-experienced exploration of sounds and forms. While this sort of thing continues to develop so productively in Scandinavia; here in Britain it seems that only the Cauld Blast Orchestra has seen the potential.

     To say Lars Hollmer's main instrument is the accordion doesn't go far in describing his music. It's the sort of thing that would make the letters of enquiry flow if one track were dropped into a DJ's playlist. Quirky, eccentric, melodic, never bland, using a range of instruments mostly played by Hollmer, with occasional vocals. The 22 tracks on The Siberian Circus are drawn from his five albums, released between 1981 and 1988. Fred Frith in his sleevenote says "Let's be clear, this-is-not-nor-has-it-ever-been Swedish folk music"; in terms of traditional tunes, he's mostly right, but folk music is more than repertoire or instrumentation, and this is certainly Swedish.

     Lars Hollmer also appears on Nights without Frames. The album title is a translation of the name Ramlösa Kvällar, an occasional band whose music was more consciously "world" (before the term was invented), less Swedish, than any of the foregoing. Like Arbete & Fritid, their shows are said to have been noted for their spontaneity. That's not say they were messy or unstructured, though, as these live recordings from 1977/8 show. Tight playing, with quite a strong Greek/Arabic feel in places, Latin in others, but still exploring northern Europe as in Vallåten, a lyrical development of a traditional Swedish tune featuring Kalle Eriksson's trumpet and Ulf Wallander's sax, and the jokey improvisation Esten, based on an Estonian tune.

     Filarfolket's Vintervals came out with this first Resource wave, too, but I guess it must have gone to some other lucky reviewer.

© 1994 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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