Tag Archives: Nordic music

Anna-Kaisa Liedes’ Utua

Singer Anna-Kaisa Liedes has been a part of the folk music scene in Finland for 20 years. Best known for her work in groups like Niekku and MeNaiset, Liedes has spent her career blending Finnish and Karelian song traditions with … Continue reading

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Vilddas’ Háliidan

The contemporary folk music emanating from Scandinavia in general, and Finland in particular, has branched out from home-grown traditions to incorporate a great variety of musical styles across the globe, from Western pop and rock to Balkan and Middle Eastern … Continue reading

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Väsen’s Keyed Up, and live at Portland, Maine, September 23, 2004

Reviewing a group more than once always presents the danger of repeating oneself, especially if the group isn’t known for taking extreme left turns with each release. With Väsen, it seems that each recording reveals music that just gets deeper … Continue reading

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Alamaailman Vasarat’s Käärmelautakunta

Alamaailman Vasarat is, according to their website, “a Finnish group playing horny and punky secret agent brass music.” While I don’t think that description does the band sufficient justice, coming up with a better one isn’t necessarily easy. Jarno Sarkula … Continue reading

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A Nordic fiddle omni: Alicia Björnsdotter Abrams’ Live at Stallet, Marianne Maans’ Marianne Maans, Majorstuen’s Jorun Jogga, Jan Beitohaugen Granli’s Lite Nemmar, and Kristine Heebøll’s Trio Mio

There is probably no culture on the planet that is without some kind of bowed instrument in its traditional practices. From a simple spike fiddle to the violin family, humans have been fascinated by the sound of dragging a bow … Continue reading

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Stian Carstensen’s Backwards Into the Backwoods

Stian Carstensen is a Norwegian multi-instrumentalist, the cracked genius behind the group Farmer’s Market, which combines Scandinavian folk, Balkan dance music and wild post-bop jazz into a heady and infectious brew. On Backwards Into the Backwoods, his latest project freed … Continue reading

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Bobo Stenson and Lennart Åberg’s Bobo Stenson/Lennart Åberg

Christopher White contributed this review. Bobo Stenson and Lennart Åberg are among the best known Swedish jazz musicians, playing piano and saxophones respectively. I hear skeptics out there making cracks about “best known Icelandic blues musicians” and so on, but … Continue reading

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Väsen’s Trio

Väsen is Olov Johansson on 3-row chromatic nyckelharpa and kontrabasharpa, Mikael Marin on viola, 5-string viola, and pomposa, and Roger Tallroth on 12-string guitar and bosoki. Having had the opportunity over the last few years to immerse myself in many … Continue reading

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Väsen live in Brunswick, Maine, September 25, 2002

My attraction to music from Scandinavia began many years ago when a fellow DJ at our local community radio station (WMPG, Portland, Maine) brought back a cassette of an early incarnation of Groupa from a trip to Sweden. It hit … Continue reading

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The Skagen Festival, Skagen, Denmark, 27-30 June 2002.

Skagen is a town in the far north of Denmark, in fact as far north you can go in that country, situated at the top of the Danish peninsula Jutland, where two seas, the Skagerack and the Kattegat, meet. Skagen … Continue reading

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