SOUNDTRACK: JAERV-Vol 2 (2014).
Jaerv is a folk group from Sweden who I happened to see live at a Scandinavian Festival several years ago. I’m impressed that ScanFest was able to get a band to come over from Sweden (unless they were doing a tour in the area anyway).
Their folk music is very traditional, meaning, to me it sounds like folk music from a lot of other countries as well (Ireland, for instance). But there are some distinctions. In particular the use of the nyckelharpa, an instrument that I’d never heard of but which is very cool.
The band consists of five musicians Joel Hagen: flute (flöjt), whistles, soprano saxophone (sopransaxofon) and ewi an electronic musical instrument); Anders Bergsten: double bass (kontrabass) and nyckelharpa; Harald Nilsson: guitars (gitarrer); Markus Gustavsson: fiddle (fiol) and lead vocals (sång); Tobias Hedlund: drums (trummer), percussion (slagverk), pedal organ (tramporgel), vibraphone (vibrafon). They all sing harmony vocals (kör).
There’s eleven songs on the album, most of them around five minutes long. It’s hard to distinguish them (which isn’t a criticism, it’s just the nature of the music).
“Vårfloden” (5:01) is an instrumental with lots of violin and flute. “Två Rörospolser” (4:13) is very traditional sounding with lots of flute and whistle. “Dansen Ungdom” (5:30) has lyrics. Gustavsson sings in a deeper voice. The song has a nice, lengthy flute instrumental jam at the end with an excellent four (or five) part harmony that sounds amazing.
“Av Himlens Höjd” (4:13) has nice vocals and harmonies, The song is quite grooving and there’s some amazing a capella vocals at the end–the bass voice is particularly noteworthy. “Johannas Brudmarsch” (4:46) is a slow fiddle tune.
“S:T Örjan & Draken” pushes the length to 8:04. There’s a slow opening with bells chiming. There’s complex, quiet singing and guitar. The tempo picks up but retreats until half way through when it changes into a stomping, intense song with a wild flute solo.
“E4:An” (3:46) seems like it will be kind of heavy with the opening chords, but they just work as a low bass for the lovely fiddling and then some lovely whistle. I like the time change mis song. “Rosa-Lill” is another short one at 2:56. It’s a bouncy folk song with flute melodies and nyckelharpa throughout. “Rocken Snurrar” (3:21) starts a capella with the harmonies creating the music while the lead vocal sings. Then they harmonize in the chorus. This one is super catchy with great vocal harmonizing and surprising glockenspiel solo.
“Slängpolska” (4:56) is an instrumental jam with lots of fiddle and flute. I like the percussion throughout. “Tre Engelskor” (5:02) ends the album very traditionally with some ripping violins.
I met the guys after the show and they were all very nice. They signed my CD which is always a nice thing to do.
You can hear the whole album here.
[READ: May 29, 2021] Gung-Ho
This is one of a few books by Ablaze Publishing that I read recently.
I really enjoyed Thomas von Kummant’s art style. The pages looked very painterly, with cool washes of colors and juxtapositions of colors rather than shading. The characters were also almost entirely distinctive *there are a lot of characters). There were one or two who looked a little to alike, but for the most part this heavily populated story was very easy to follow who was who.
Set somewhere in Europe (I wondered if this was written in German–I don’t see a translator, but he does live in Munich [UPDATE: according to a catalog record, the book was translated from the French by Ivanka Hahnenberger]), we come upon an outpost. It is heavily guarded. The people are heavily armed and they all kook pretty dirty.
Cut to a train hauling cargo and two teenage boys, Archie and Zack on top wearing prison orange. They were kicked out of their orphanage and sent here. If they can’t make it here, they are on their own.
The town has a strict hierarchy and strict rules for safety. All provisions are divvied out based on need and on who kills the most (we don’t know what they’re hunting, yet). We also see that the guy who divvies out the provisions isn’t above getting himself some teenage girl action for extra supplies (ew).
Indeed, many people in town have a problem with him, but he was sent by the military and is above questioning.
There are 400 people living here including many teenagers. The boys almost all follow this one leader who is a jerk. There are a few who don’t follow him and one in particular befriends Zack. There’s also a bunch of girls who seem to hang out together and maybe or maybe not fool around with the bad boys. (more…)
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SOUNDTRACK: MANIC STREET PREACHERS-“Die in the Summertime” (1994).
I really liked the Manic Street Preachers in the late 90s. Perhaps ironically, I learned about them after the strange disappearance of lyricist and guitarist Richey Edwards, and really liked the first few albums that they put out without him. I went back and listened to their older stuff later, but I still prefer Everything Must Go.
