The moonlit glimmer of a Hardanger fiddle’s harmonies is one of the wonders of music, but though Nils Økland’s mastery of Norway’s homegrown instrument (with its four violin-like fingered strings and multiple resonating drone strings) often surfaces in themes that sound like folk songs, he draws on psychedelic rock trances, improv, classical music, and jazz. His 2014 Lumen Drones album mingled guitar reverb and stormy drumming with the Hardanger’s delicacy, but though this beautiful recording of Økland originals stays closer to traditional Nordic and Celtic folk melodies, its secret lies in their gentle massaging by jazz intonations, by the churchy sound of Sigbjørn Apeland’s harmonium, and drumming suggestive of medieval troubadours. Mali has a folk-fiddle theme but an insinuating groove; a growling sax-swell enters the slithery Drev; Mats Eilertsen’s jazz bass dominates the title track; the dancing Fivreld has elephant-trumpeting roars and whoops skimming off the nimble strings theme; and Bla Harding sounds like an American country blues with Scottish and Scandinavian inflections. It’ll be on my 2015 fave-raves list.
