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Written in fRoots issue 311, 2009
 

ZAR
Der Brænder En Ild
Zar ZAR0308 (2008)

ZENOBIA
Midnat
Go GO1208 (2008)

HAL & NIKOLAJ
Hal & Nikolaj
Go GO1108 (2008)

BASCO
The Crow In The Walnut Tree
Go GO0708 (2008)

TRIO THG
Tungen Ud Ad Vinduet
Go GO0808 (2008)

Both of Zar’s previous albums won in the folk section of the Danish Music Awards; this one’s nominated in 2009, and the band is up for Contemporary Act of the Year. In traditional material plus some originals singer Sine Lahm Lauritsen is accompanied by a band of accomplished, unforced elegance of both playing and arrangement.
     There are no real style-guides or role models for Danish traditional singing, no acquired folk-vocal sound, so whatever works and projects the songs, and Lauritsen does that with a kind of pop confidence that somehow evokes - and I mean this in a good way - a vision of Britney Spears singing folk songs, but with a lightness and a sensitivity to their content. And in Danish of course. In the band’s early days she did have something of a Britney-sob, that’s pretty much gone now. Michael Graubæk and Andreas Tophøj’s twin fiddles are perky or smooth, Rasmus Zeeberg has a nippy light touch on guitar (plus mandolin and dobro) and with the notably great tone of Steffan Søgaard Sørensen’s plucked, bowed, woodily slithering double bass it all meshes together with great naturalness and fine detail, aided by a natural-sounding expert mix by Gary Paczosa in Nashville. Listen at www.myspace.com/zarmusic

     An album of equal class and clarity comes from the similarly alphabet-ending Zenobia, whose album is a mix of original and traditional songs plus some drawing on 19th and early 20th century writers and composers (as one discovers from www.zenobia.nu - the pack reprehensibly doesn’t give any information at all about them).
     Like Zar’s Sine, Zenobia’s Louise Støjberg is a singer of authority with experience in fields other than folk; she has rock and jazz involvements, and sounds very at home in the Berlin-cabaret/tango style Man Binder Os På Mund Og Hand. She doesn’t vocally embellish or get hung up on style, though she has plenty of technique, but gets in a communicative, direct way to the heart of the songs.
     Her pianist sister Charlotte’s other musics include playing in two tango bands and it shows in her fluid style. The trio is completed by accordionist Mette Katherine Jensen, a traditional music specialist whose solo album got a very positive review in fR last year from Chris Nickson. Friends from childhood around Egtved in central Jutland, they got together in Odense for Mette Kathrine’s Nielsen Academy graduation concert. The three of them make a satisfyingly complete sound, augmented on the album by guest violinist Kristine Heebøll and touches of flügelhorn, lap steel and bass. This isn’t a ‘promising debut album’; it’s the fully-formed thing.

     In a musical meeting that justifies, in the melodiousness of its compositions and the elegance of its playing and arrangement, the up-market gold-tooled black book styling of its CD pack, are pianist Nikolaj Busk and fiddler Hal Parfitt-Murray.
Busk, while on the Nielsen Academy’s jazz course, found the door into the folk music department and so became a founder of Kristine Heebøll’s Trio Mio, and has since become a key figure in Danish folk revival’s new skill-set. Scots-born, Australia-raised, Denmark-resident Hal Parfitt-Murray, an alumnus of both the Nielsen and Gateshead folk music courses, is a fiddler of fine feeling, sensitive as to when to go for rhythmic drive or rich violinistic tone. He also contributes guitar, mandolin and viola, and Busk occasionally moves to accordion or harmonium.
     Moving between smartly skippy dance tunes and elegant, well-felt airs, they play largely their own compositions, including one inspired by sole surviving Galapagos giant tortoise Lonesome George, that often show Scottish as well as south Scandinavian and other influences. Hear them at www.myspace.com/halnikolaj

     Parfitt-Murray joins Zar fiddler Andreas Tophøj, accordionist Anders Ringgaard and guitarist Sigurd Hockings in Basco, whose debut album, like all of those above, is nominated for a Danish Music Award. Abounding in youthful energy, spark and skill, they play mostly their own tunes in Scandinavian, Celtic and American styles, the latter including a motoring version of Blackberry Blossom, a tune learnt from a visiting tutor at the Nielsen Academy, Bruce Molsky. Ringgaard’s other instrument, trombone, adds some interesting textural changes in really rather smart music. There are tracks at www.myspace.com/bascoband

     In another snappy twin-fiddle line-up, Trio THG, fiddler Tophøj and guitarist Hockings unite with Tophøj’s Zar fiddling colleague Michael Graubæk; these guys seem to have so much to play they’re generating a substantial proportion of Denmark’s current roots CD surge. THG’s repertoire is largely traditional, but I can’t tell you much about it; the slide-out cardboard pack is ingenious but short of space and doesn’t give any info other than titles. The CD-possessor is directed to the website www.triothg.dk for that, which is remiss; a fair part of the point of buying a physical CD rather than a download is to have all the info to hand, not have to go to a computer for it. And the site at the time of reviewing is defunct or not built yet. I’d recommend a listen instead at www.myspace.com/triothg.

The labels are at www.zarmusic.dk and www.gofolk.dk



© 2009 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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