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Written in fRoots issue 223/224, 2002
 

GARMARNA
Hildegard Von Bingen
MNW MNWCD 365 (2001)

Garmarna’s lurch into Latin, and the songs of the 12th-century theologian, composer, poet, playwright, near-saint and alleged migraine sufferer Hildegard from the Rhine town of Bingen, developed out of the band’s recruitment back in 1998 for a tour performing her works in a clutch of Swedish churches. Euchari, made for that project, appeared on the last album and as a single, and now a new version of it opens a whole album of nine Garmarnised Hildegard songs.
      In the late 20th century Hildegard rediscovery and boom there have been many renditions, from early music to new age, of her plainsong and antiphon tunes with their visionary lyrics. Of course none of the treatments, even the most carefully archaeological, as far as we know sound exactly as she would have heard her music sung in the convent she founded. Perceptions of music have changed; what persists must be something fundamental, clothed by a present-day performer or arranger’s personal empathy and interpretation.
      In Garmarna’s, Emma Härdelin’s clear calm vocals float over urgent techno-programmed drone-groove rhythms and sound manipulations given texture by the band’s real hurdy-gurdy, fiddles, guitar, bass, or drums. Individual tracks taken one at a time are somewhat appealing in their contrast between vocal and arrangement, but as the album proceeds in like vein the relentless and not deeply related clickety-bop-plinky-tizz-thud machine shuffle can get wearing.
      There are change-of-pace sections - a small glade of uneasy calm in the middle of track 5, Unde Quocomque, an Astroturfed dell of fizzy slow synth pads and strings in the first part of track 7 - but soon crashing through the trees comes the busy retro computer-game soundtrack, which only quits the field for Härdelin’s unaccompanied singing of Kyrie, the last track. The material, whatever its virtues may be, has lasted for over eight centuries; it’s tough, it can stand it, but the electro toy-play layered onto it, while probably more enlivening than plummily arch pretended authenticism or wispy new-age, seems dated and gimmicky already, like last year’s mobile phone.
      Garmarna has become a splendid, energy-transcending-technology live band, though; this album is just a detour that shows it’s still having adventures.


© 2001 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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