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Written in fRoots issue 229, 2002
 

HAUGAARD & HØIRUP
Lys – Light
GO GO0501 (2002)

ERLING HANSEN
…Det Er Mine
Erling Hansen EH 102 (2001)

Harald Haugaard is or has been the fiddler in a cluster of notable Danish rocky and acoustic folk bands including Dug, Sorten Muld and Serras, but playing to far more people at home and abroad than any of them is the small(ish) mobile unit of Haugaard with guitarist Morten Alfred Høirup. They’re making a fine job of proving that Danish traditional tunes, and the ones they’re writing from that starting point, can be as hot and complex as in any other European dance tradition, and that there are songs and shapely hymn tunes, and for many abroad they’ve been the first intimation that Danish roots music exists and excites.
      It’s a very equal partnership, not a case of fiddler plus accompanist. Høirup is a top-rank guitarist of great experience and adaptability, driving with percussive single strings, choppy barre-chords, power-strumming or delicate arpeggios, and in the two vocal items here, Til Rosengården and Det Var En Lørdag Aften, shows his ability in that direction too, while Haugaard’s fiddling is both energetic and subtle, skipping lightly from fine floating to extreme digging in.
      Incidentally, some of the tunes here can also be found on the duo’s recent live album on the German label Stockfisch, Let’s Dansk!

      Hiding within an exemplarily awful example of home-computer low-pixel package design, and therefore spending longer on the review shelf than it should have, is Det Er Mine, a likeable set of his own tunes, plus an Italian waltz, by fiddler and occasional banjoist Erling Hansen. His melodic and unforced playing, accompanied in a straightforward way mainly on guitar, piano or accordion and bass, has the springy, perky lift characteristic of much Danish traditional dance music. He’s been making and playing these tunes since the 1970s, long before the current Danish roots revival, and the main reason for the album is to get the tunes out so others can play them, with the modest hope that perhaps one will make it into the ongoing tradition. He even makes the offer: “I have music for most of the tunes. Send me a stamped envelope and a couple of kroner to pay the photocopy, and I’ll send them”. He’s at Havnegade 7, 4220 Korsør, Denmark. He aims also to make them available on his website, www.erlinghansen.dk; already there are the dots for quite a few traditional tunes, including a bunch of engelskas.


© 2002 Andrew Cronshaw

(2009 note - the Erling Hansen website address given in this review is defunct)

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