Listening to this album is like sitting on the perimeter of an after hours fiddle jam at a Scandinavian folk festival. Five fiddlers sawing away at hoary old Norwegian dance tunes, each of them occasionally swapping out the fiddle for some kind of percussion, a lute or a lyre, a mouth harp or portable pump organ. A couple of times they even break into song, an old Norse hymn about how good it is to love Jesus.
So close your eyes and picture that as Hans P. Kjorstad (fiddle, octave fiddle, harmonium, and the swarmandal zither) and his all star ensemble play these transcendental versions of old Norwegian folk music, which they first premiered in concert in 2022. The other players are Rasmus Kjorstad (fiddle, octave fiddle, langeleik zither), Helga Myhr (Hardanger fiddle), Kenneth Lien (fiddle, mouth harp, lyre) and Astrid Garmo (fiddle, Hardanger fiddle, tanpura – the South Asian droning lyre).
Hans Kjorstad’s presence is liberally sprinkled across some records I have listened to and reviewed in the past few years including Stein Urheim’s Speilstillevariasjoner, Marthe Lea Band’s Herlighetens Vei, and Frode Haltli’s Avant Folk recordings, two of which I’ve reviewed (St. Morten and Avant Folk II) and all of which I’ve picked up via Bandcamp and enjoyed immensely. This is the first of his own projects I’ve covered, though. The other players are less well known to me except for Helga Myhr, who shows up with her Hardanger and voice on Haltli’s St. Morten, Erlend Apneseth’s Song Over Støv Mojna’s Mareld and Väntenätter, Kvedarkvintetten’s Tagal, and, with Rasmus Kjorstad, Morgonrode’s Du milde verden.
“Dålågjel is based on archival footage of traditional tunes from the Gudbrandsdal, Halligdal, Valdres, Setesdal and Telemark regions of Norway,” according to the accompanying press release. “With diligent fidelity to the source material, Kjorstad impressively maintains the tonality and rhythm of different highly personal past traditions, while letting his own creativity shine brightly, through deliciously lavish arrangements, and production wizardry.”
Ah, production wizardry. It’s subtle, but it enhances the content. I especially notice and appreciate it on the final two tracks, the mysteriously named “Faremoslått” (is that Swedish?) and its follower, “Uttro til Faremoslått,” which I assume means “outro to Faremoslått; perhaps the ensemble just continuing to jam on the beguiling tune. Here Hans on octave fiddle and harmonium is joined by just Kenneth on mouth harp (aka Jew’s harp) and lyre. The drone of the harmonium, octave fiddle and mouth harp together, plus probably some of that production wizardry, give this the sound of an otherworldly folk/EDM mashup that’s only aided by the thudding foot percussion on the downbeats.
If you’ve come for fiddle tunes, there are plenty of those. Polskas and hallings mostly, though I can’t always tell the difference, being a couple of generations removed from my Norwegian ancestry. A favorite example here is “Den synste” (The Saw), by four fiddles and harmonium with foot rhythms; and the next one “Kongelåtten” (The King’s Dog) on five fiddles – just regular fiddles too, no Hardangers or octaves. One of the album’s focal points and its longest track is the dreamy yet rhythmic “Løytnantsdrengen” (The Lieutenant’s Boy,” a stuttering polska with claps and foot taps, two Hardangers and more, including swooshes on the harplike swarmandal.
The ensemble has some improvisational, discordant fun on the intro to “Halling etter Emil Bruheim” and the tune itself which follows the intro is another great thumping circular dance tune played by the whole gang on fiddles. And there are two versions of the stately hymn “At elske vår Jesus er inderlig godt” (To love our Jesus is deeply good), sung a capella by four of the five and recorded to sound like it’s being sung in a cave, or at least one of those big austere stone churches that litter the landscape.
So yes, this is a lot of fiddles and a lot of fiddling — I mean, a lot — but Dålågjel is a treat for the serious fan of Nordic folk music.
(Motvind, 2026)
