Nordic music
Music Reissues Weekly: Shadowplay - Touch and Glow, Eggs & PopSunday, 25 August 2024
Some pointers suggest how Finland’s Shadowplay might sound. They took their name from a Joy Division song. Their key founder member was Brandi Ifgray – born Visa Ruokonen. He had been in the final line-up of first-generation Finnish punk band Ratsia... Read more... |
Album: Pom Poko - ChampionWednesday, 14 August 2024
The musical equivalent of a firework display, the third album from Norwegian art-poppers Pom Poko is bright, energised and unstoppable. It is also considered; clearly the culmination of a careful creative process. Fusing the spontaneous and the... Read more... |
Album: Mari Kvien Brunvoll & Stein Urheim with Moskus - Barefoot in BryophyteMonday, 05 August 2024
Barefoot in Bryophyte is a collaboration between musicians embedded in Norway’s jazz and experimental music scenes. Some of it, though, sounds nothing like what might be expected. Take the fourth track, “Paper Fox.” Figuratively, it lies at the... Read more... |
Vossa Jazz 2024 review - Norwegian festival embraces William Parker’s spaciness, Karin Krog’s classicism and much moreWednesday, 27 March 2024
“The name of this group is Mayan Space Station.” In spite of the billing as The William Parker Trio, their bassist – coolly introducing himself as “William Parker, bass” – is firm about the designation under which the three musicians on stage are... Read more... |
Albums of the Year 2023: Cécile McLorin Salvant - MélusineThursday, 21 December 2023
If Mélusine is encountered without knowing its background or themes it would still be remarkable. There is no need to know anything about what frames this journey through Chanson Française, electronica, jazz and show-tune sensibilities with lyrics... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Osmo Lindeman - Electronic WorksSunday, 29 October 2023
For Finnish composer Osmo Lindeman, the decision to pursue electronic music was made in 1968 during a visit to Poland. He had recently started using graphical notation for the scores of his compositions and was having problems getting conductors and... Read more... |
Hardanger Musikkfest 2023 review - fertility, folk music and the supernatural unite along Norway’s fjordsThursday, 07 September 2023
The cows are scattered across the mountains. Without scrambling up the slopes, the only way to summon them is to call. Unni Løvlid is beckoning them. Instead of standing outdoors she is in the medieval Ullensvang Church, in the Norwegian village of... Read more... |
Julie Byrne, Juni Habel, Kings Place review - finely tuned evening balancing dark with lightThursday, 27 July 2023
It’s probably an unconscious action. Sat on a stage-centre chair, Julie Byrne sings. The two acoustic guitars she plays for about half the set are beside her, on their racks. One hand is above the other, palms down. Each moves side-to-side in a... Read more... |
Album: Susanna - Baudelaire & OrchestraMonday, 24 July 2023
After his death in 1867, it didn’t take long for Charles Baudelaire’s poems to be set to music. Composer Henri Duparc did so in 1870, but Claude Debussy’s late 1880s framing of five of the Symbolist pioneer’s verses confirmed this as more than a one... Read more... |
Album: Sigur Rós - ÁTTAFriday, 16 June 2023
It’s easy to take Sigur Rós’s emotive force for granted. So ubiquitous has their 2005 “Hoppípolla” been on everything from talent shows to apocalyptic environmental collapse documentaries to lyrical scenes of birds in flight that it became the... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Denmark - celebrating Nielsen in high styleSaturday, 10 June 2023
Eight years ago I was privileged to be in Denmark on the 150th anniversary of Carl Nielsen’s birth, experiencing for the first time live his masterly Saul and David. The return visit was too brief and unexpectedly fraught, including a complicated... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: musician Susanne Sundfør - ‘Blómi is a message of hope for whoever might need it’Thursday, 27 April 2023
With the release this week of Blómi, her sixth studio album, Norway’s Susanne Sundfør discloses more about herself than she previously has through her music – but nothing is made obvious. As she says during this interview, the driving concept... Read more... |
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