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"The absurdly broad term
'world music is rendered useless in the face of these four
musicians who play with such genuine passion and glee that
everything on the globe seems to disappear except their hometown
fires. This is 'local music' in the best sense of the
word--believable, human-scaled and fluent in the international
language of musical interplay." - National Public Radio's "All
Things Considered"
"Väsen treads an enchanted territory between classical, folk,
and pop." - Utne Reader
"The sound may be traditional, but the attitude is completely
modern, mixing up the ideas of folk, the virtuosity of prog, and
the humor of the insane asylum into a cuisinart of acoustic
bliss. Visualize whirled music." - Wired
"...the band's anciently original compositions can be immensely
brooding, stately, fitfully spry or dramatically expansive."
-
Richard Harrington, The Washington Post
"...Invoking both serene panoramic vistas and sharp blazing
melodies, the music has found fans far beyond the borders of the
band's native Sweden, and for good reason." - CMJ
"...a hypnotic pastiche that is bathed in the traditions of
Väsen's homeland and awe-inspiringly ancient and creative at the
same time." - Sing Out!
"Alternately angular and gritty, plaintive and baroque, Spirit
is chock-full of inspiring melodies and fine musicianship."
-
Acoustic Guitar
"Anchored by insistent drones and distinguished by angular
fiddle melodies, this music could be the most significant
Swedish export since the Vikings." -Rhythm
"The music is, at turns, entrancing, enchanting, uplifting,
lilting, lovely, and just plain fun." - Minneapolis Star Tribune
"The sounds that result are dervish-like, laden with
instantaneous vitality and age-old importance. Truly, there's
nothing quite like it." - Albuquerque Weekly Alibi
"...a very effective contemporary sounding acoustic tour de
force." - Dirty Linen
"Whirled is dervish music from the frigid zone." - The Beat
"Hallmarked by instrumental mastery, daring arrangements, and
tasteful experiments, Gront is a rich, brooding hour of cold
comfort, indeed." -barnesandnoble.com
Väsen: it don't mean a thang if it ain't got that swang -
SingOut 22/32007
Author Bill Snyder
September 28th, 2006, was a snapshot of every thing that is
perfect about Väsen. That's not to say it was a defining moment
in the band's career or a better gig than the one before it. For
me, the concert was quintessentially Väsen by being unlike any
of the dozen previous encounters I'd had with the Swedish band's
performances.
The evening had all the trappings of repetition. They were
playing the Nordic Roots Festival at The Cedar Cultural Center
in Minneapolis--a venue they've played five times over the
festival's eight-year existence (more than any other artist). As
for the venue: "It feels good to be back here at The Cedar. I
don't know how many times we've been here. I can't count that
long," guitarist Roger Tallroth told the audience. A little
later, he referred to the venue as "home."
The band's 18-year history has been tied together less by a
consistency of sound, than by an ongoing evolution, grounded in
tradition but changing through experimentation, shifts in
instrumentation, and countless collaborations.
"I think [Väsen] has its roots in the joy of playing music quite
freely," Tallroth says of the band's continual innovation. "The
reason I'm still doing it is the immediate joy of playing what
you want in real time."
You could say that Väsen is an ongoing experiment tracking back
to 1989 and a house in Roros, Norway, where a group of musicians
gathered. There, Tallroth met nyckelharpa player Olov Johansson.
who suggested they jam and see how their instruments would sound
together. As the band likes to tell the story, Tallroth
declined, opting to take a shower instead. Fortunately, the
shower was occupied, and they ended up jamming for a couple of
hours. Shortly alter that meeting, Johansson set to work on a
solo album, bringing Tallroth and fiddler/viola player Mikael
Marin, a childhood friend, along to record with him. The album,
released in 1990, was titled Väsen, a word whose meanings
include spirit, essence and noise. It could have ended there,
with an Olov Johansson solo album, but when requests to book the
band Väsen came in, they decided to give it a go.
Though that first recording was comprised completely of
traditional tunes, the musicians were already turning heads and
annoying some folk "purists" with their arrangements. All three
were rooted in the fiddle tradition of Sweden's Uppland province
(Tallroth plays fiddle outside of the band), they were finding
their collective voice in the arrangements. Indeed, their
instrumentation alone was a departure from folk tradition,
regardless of the repertoire. "We are not traditional,"
Johansson explains matter-of-factly. "There were no traditional
bands with 12-string guitar and viola."
Tallroth takes responsibility for his share of the rancor. "My
guitar playing has too many strange chords and rhythms," he
acknowledges. "I have always made the guitar playing as I've
heard it in my head."
In 1992, they pushed farther into uncharted territory with Vilda
Väsen (Wild Vasen), their first proper album as a band and the
trio's first foray into the original compositions that have
marked its repertoire since. Where some great bands feature the
interplay of distinct musical voices, Vasen is three musicians
who speak as one every chord fits, without excess playing or
extra space. "You blend together and form another shape,"
Tallroth says. "The three voices form into one."
If you haven't heard them, it may help to imagine a mammoth
six-armed player plucking, strumming and bowing a few dozen
strings. Responding to the six-armed monster theory, Johansson
laughs, "We always try to sound like an orchestra, and we do
have a lot of strings."
Väsen was and is the trio of Tallroth, Johansson and Marin, but
the trio of 2007 is not the trio of 1989; several evolutionary
steps separate them. In 1994, the Väsen joined Nordman, Swedish
rock musician Mats Wester's folk-pop project. The sound, with
its Eurovision vibe, was huge, especially in comparison to the
trio's acoustic work. So were the concert audiences, some as
large as 25,000 people. In all, Väsen's participation in the
project spanned two CDs, two tours and roughly two years.
Väsen went on to adopt Nordman bassist Johan Granstrom and
percussionist Andre Ferrari, and played as Vasen V for a couple
of years, working out arrangements, making demos, and even
preparing to record an album. But as rehearsals for the album
began, Granstrom departed, leaving the quartet to record their
1997 release, titled Whirled in the U.S. and Varldens Väsen in
Sweden. (Three Väsen demos were released on the U.S. compilation
Spirit.)
Opting for an assortment of percussion instruments over a
standard kit, Ferrari brought a range of timbres and textures to
the music. The incorporation of percussion also forced the band
to tighten its playing, making them a tighter outfit.
"There's a certain range or 'hit area' that the music must be
within in order for the groove and vibe to feel right,"
Johansson explains. "We had a much bigger area when we started.
It was much more kind of stretchy and flexible. But then when we
played with Andre, who is an extremely precise person and
musician ... that hit area becomes much smaller. So we learned a
lot of things by playing with Andre. A lot of things happened
with the music under his influence."
Whirled/Varldens Väsen went on to become the band's biggest
album, opening the door to newfound popularity and increased
touring in the U.S. The quartet would continue releasing albums
and playing to growing audiences until a U.S. tour was cancelled
after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Following the
cancelled tour, Ferrari opted out of long stints on the road. In
2002, Väsen returned to touring as a trio. Though they continue
to play with Ferrari in Sweden and occasionally on short
European trips, all of their new music has been for the trio.
"When we started to play as the trio again, it was kind of 'Hey.
This was fun! We haven't done this in a while,'" Johansson says.
"It was also kind of liberating to get rid of the percussion,
because you get more space in the music. And Roger gets a much
freer role without the percussion.
"Andre tried to adapt his sounds and his beats to our swing and
groove at the time. But part of the traditional playing is that
tempo and beats move around within the measure. When we played
with Andre, we usually went for the stuff that [had the fewest]
[irregularities] to make it work with percussion."
The band was energized and ready to create, releasing 2003 's
aptly named Trio, 2004's All Keyed Up, and 2005's Live in Japan
in short order. Though comprised of the same players, the new
trio was tighter and more flexible than the original
incarnation. Many of the technical aspects of playing had become
second nature, freeing them to push their creative boundaries,
Tallroth says. "The process of doing things changes. Parts are
automated. It's like driving a car."
Of course, Väsen's evolution wasn't as simple as moving from a
trio to a quintet to a quartet and back to a trio with a stop in
Nordman along the way. Väsen is never simple. They are
passionate collaborators, having played with Darol Anger, Mike
Marshall, Frigg, Dervish, Annbjorg Lien and JPP, to name a few.
With each of these cross-cultural collaborations, the band has
grown musically, building upon its Uppland tradition. "I like to
make small trips to other traditions," Johansson explains, "but
I always come back to my music. And every time you do that, you
learn something."
Live jams can be bloated, chemistry-free affairs, but Väsen's
collaborations--a number of which can be sampled on Väsen So Far
(1989-2005), the DVD packaged with Live in Japan--are different.
Instead of adding musicians to their arrangements (or adding
themselves on to others' arrangements), the collaborators seem
to form a new band with a life of its own. There may be 15
musicians onstage, but they still play with an economy of notes
and speak with one voice.
On September 28th, Väsen's partner in crime was Darol Anger.
Three years earlier, he had written the band asking to jam with
them when they hit California. After countless e-mails, the
band, seemingly ignorant of Anger's music, reluctantly told him
to bring his instrument to the gig--at least that's how they
tell the story from the stage. "Anyway, we met him, and we
instantly fell in love with his music and his playing and his
warm personality," Tallroth told the Minneapolis crowd, "...
even though he's kind of a short guy."
With Tallroth taking a break to give the three fiddlers some
quality time, Anger introduced "Elzik's Farewell" and "Yew Piney
Mountain." "This is some American music, which we forced these
guys to play.... Mike Marshall and I got to make a record with
these guys that may come out sometime in the future, some day.
This is a couple of tunes which we've re-imagined together."
American music? Well not exactly, at least not anymore. Gone was
the picking and old-time twang that mark other versions of
"Elzik's Farewell" and only a hint of Celtic influence was left
in "Yew Piney Mountain." Anger's grinding bass sounds met
Johansson and Marin's intertwined melodies and harmonies to
create a new tradition--not completely Swedish or American.
On the 11 Swedish tunes (both traditional and Väsen
compositions) Anger played with them, it was if the trio
instinctively stepped back to make space for him. "He's bringing
in something else we don't have in Väsen," Johansson says. "He
brings in this solo thing he's been working with his entire
life." Indeed, it's amazing to hear Anger's jazzy solo on
Marin's deeply Swedish "Drakskeppet (The Dragon Ship)." And it
was equally impressive to hear Anger infusing Vasen's repertoire
with deep bass sounds and an electric-guitar-like growl.
Väsen's collaborations are folk tradition at its best: songs and
techniques changing over the years as they pass from player to
player. "If we're learning to play jigs from Dervish, it
probably sounds Swedish to them," Johansson says of another
frequent collaborator, "because they sound Irish to us when they
play our polskas."
Paradoxically, this is a case of tradition facilitating
innovation. It's Väsen's traditional roots, along with some
pretty amazing chemistry, that have made the band's evolution
possible. As Tallroth points out, they all listened to the same
Uppland fiddlers, and that has provided the band with a common
framework.
"My platform is still the way of playing melodies that I learned
from my teachers in Uppland. That way of playing is my
platform," Johansson says. "I always feel secure in my
platform."
Though they may be known for their original compositions, many
of the bowing patterns and tunes come from traditional Swedish
music, and they follow the tradition of sticking to the melody
while changing the ornaments. "It's kind of interesting if you
listen to old recordings," Johansson explains. "It may be the
same melody, but the taste of it has changed over 100 years ...
The music around the melodies will change."
After nearly two decades, Marin and Johansson recently discussed
what they find special about Väsen. (As Tallroth, who wasn't
around for that conversation, points out, "Vasen has always been
more of a playing group than a talking group.")
"We both said, 'The way we play together,'" Johansson recalls.
"It's really tight, but still swinging and everyone in the band
can change the swing and the dynamics, because everyone is
listening. When I'm playing in other settings, it's hard to
reach that point."
After thinking a bit, he decides that "swing" wasn't exactly
what he meant, and reaches for the Swedish swang, which
literally means to swing, vibrate, and rotate. "For me, music
has to swing or groove or I get really sad," he adds.
Listening to them talk about each other, it becomes clear that
their roles in the band match their personalities. "I have
something inside all the time when I'm playing," Johansson says.
"I have a direction in the melody. It's on its move, and it has
to groove all the time. And then Roger, he's this guy with all
these ideas making all these comments all the time, around the
melody. And Mikael, he's a bit of a diplomat." He then adds with
a laugh, "I guess we play like we are."
Of Marin, Johansson elaborates, "He's developed a fantastic
ability to be in between the melody and the bass lines and
chords Roger creates. He's trained for 17 years not to collide."
When asked about a new album, Tallroth responds, "We have
started to talk about thinking about talking about it. We did
Trio, Keyed Up, and Live in Japan quite quickly."
The band's collaboration with Marshall and Anger was completed
in early 2005, and Tallroth says it should come out on
Marshall's label, Adventure Music, sometime in 2007. As with
"Elzik's Farewell" and "Yew Piney Mountain," it includes new and
traditional songs from Sweden and North America--all, as Anger
would say, re-imagined--along with some Brazilian choro music
for good measure.
"It's a good meeting," Tallroth notes. "We are not trying to
sound like them, and they're not trying to sound like us. It was
fun. Some of the songs were previously recorded by Darol and
Mike, but are done very differently. They let us shape them
too."
When asked how he feels looking back over the band's career,
Johansson reflects for a moment before responding.
"I feel happy and grateful," he says with a laugh. "It's not
bad, you know, to be able to compose your own music and arrange
it in the band together with musicians you really enjoy playing
with and also being able to travel to many different places. And
people like it. That's amazing. I remember thinking that thought
when I was in Japan for the first time: 'Hey. This is really
weird. Here we have traveled to the other side of the world, and
we are laying these tunes that we have composed, and were
working on at home just for fun, and they really like it. They
really appreciate it. That's amazing.'"
But perhaps it was Anger who captured the sentiment of fans,
from America to Sweden to Japan, best. After the four musicians
made their way through a standing ovation back to the stage for
an encore, he said, "There's rumor among musicians that these
guys are the best band in the world ... It's no joke."
Väsen at Celtic Connections [- Hide]
Barry Gordon 28/-2008
SWEDEN. Famous for its Vikings and limited amount ...
SWEDEN. Famous for its Vikings and limited amount of sunlight
during the shivering winter months, our Scandinavian cousins
have given us a lot more than just Abba, blond hair and Henrik
Larsson. Like trad music innovators, Vasen, for instance. The
Swedish trio might bestow a name that sounds like something
bought from IKEA you put flowers in, but they also sound like
one of the best folk acts in the world today.
Vasen, on the other hand, are an altogether different
proposition. Telepathic to the point where they could probably
predict what’s behind Zener cards, the Nordic trio’s skill in
simultaneously stopping and starting at the same time left some
scratching their heads as well as their chins.
The band’s fixation with polkas and the 3/4-time signature
dominated their set, Roger Tallroth’s heavily syncopated guitar
notes a funky contrast to Marin’s classical style viola, and
Johansson’s utterly compelling nyckelharpa playing. Granted, the
majority of the tunes may have come from the 1700s, but in
Vasen's capable hands, they sounded as if they had been penned
at 17.00 hours the previous day.
An indirectly humorous bunch, too, the trio punctuated the
evening's more so-called serious music with elements from movie
theme tunes; a bizarre story about some Vasen fans from
Bloomington, Indiana, who are trying to have a street named
after the band; plus some slapstick comedy directed at various
band members’ bodily functions (scratching the viola in the
wrong place can serve up all kinds of embarrassment).
A rare ability to fade out a song as if on an LP was executed to
pin-dropping effect. However, what dazzled the most was the
band’s skill in shifting dynamics - often, and quickly -
whenever the mood took them.
Overall then, a great night's entertainment from two
sharp-contrasting outfits. While Jenna Reid upheld the
traditional Scottish music flag with meticulous dexterity, it
was with welcome arms that we greeted yet another fabulous
Swedish import. To see both on the same stage again would be a
rare treat indeed.
ur Eskilstunakuriren
FREDAG 9 MARS 2007
Mycket väsen blev det
Först blev de alldeles chockade när de klev ut på scenen:
- Va! Inte en människa i hela lokalen.
Hur spelade vi egentligen senast vi var här?
Gitarristen Roger Tallroth i Väsen var först beredd att rannsaka
sitt minne från senaste besöket för två år sedan, men en timme
senare när han fick se ett Contrast mer eller mindre utsålt var
han nästan rörd. Vuxna människan.
Det visade sig att bandet och publiken fått skilda uppgifter om
klockslag.
Men det gjorde inget alls när det visade sig att det blev en
sådan radikal scenförändring i salongen på blott sextio minuter.
Bjöd på smakprov
Väsen uppträdde i går kväll som den trio man varit i några år
nu, men flaggade för att slagverkaren André Ferrari kan vara på
väg tillbaka in i bandet igen. Han medverkar på en alldeles
nyinspelad skiva, som bara ska slutmixas och tryckas innan den
ges ut senare i år, och som handlar mycket om årets stora
jubilar, Carl Linné.
Ett par smakprov bjöds publiken på i Eskilstuna i går kväll,
bland annat den mycket fina Linnaeus polonaise. (Linnés polska
på adekvat svenska).
Väsen blandar friskt mellan finstämda valser och fartfyllda
polskor, mellan eftersinnat lågmält och ystert lekfullt. Riktigt
vackra, närmast andäktig i tonläget, är mjuka kompositioner som
Mikael Marins sång till trions japanska manager och turnéledare,
Yoko, som lyckas förena något av både det japanska och franska,
och Roger Tallroths fantastiskt stämningsfulla dopvals till
brorsdottern Josefin.
Olof Johanssons komposition Kalles vals var också väldigt fin.
Lite drygt två timmar med mest eget material, men även lite
lånat gods, en konsert i två avdelningar, som i princip bara
försvann på ett ögonblick.
Starkt jobbat.
Torsten BrafTorsten Braf
torsten.braf @ ekuriren.se
016-156179
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Publicerad: 2007-05-18
Väsen hyllar Linné
FOLKMUSIK. Uppländska Väsen drar sitt strå till stacken för att
uppmärksamma Carl von Linné med en ny, intressant cd där gruppen
presenterar ett knippe föga kända melodier som på olika sätt har
anknytning.
Väsen
Linnaeus Väsen
(NorthSide)
RECENSION Det är polskor, polonäser, marscher med mera av folk
som Linnés svåger Gabriel Höök, Linnés farmors bror Sven
Tiliander, skolkamraten Magnus Grönkvist och spelmannen Andreas
Grevelius som var aktiv spelman i Växjö under Linnés studietid
där.
De fyra musikerna i
Väsen - denna gång ingår slagverkaren André Ferrari - har ett
passionerat sätt att närma sig de ömsom rustika, ömsom lyriskt
längtansfulla melodierna som tar ett obevekligt grepp om
lyssnaren.
Melodierna står hela tiden i förgrunden, men varieras i styrka
och stämföring, i luftigt lätta mellanpartier och
melodipresentationer där stämmorna löper samman på ett
kraftfullt sätt. Det låter mycket om gruppen, Ferrari ger botten
och tyngd med sparsamma rytmiska medel och gitarristen Roger
Tallroth både rytmiserar och lägger värdefulla understämmor till
Olov Johanssons nyckelharpa och Mikael Marins viola.
Jag fastnar särskilt för
det rytmiska allvaret och hypnotiska drivet i Carl XII:s marsch
vid Narva, efter Sven och Niclas Tiliander, liksom de
förtjusande små himmelsmenuetterna av samma upphovsmän i en
stämmorik, drömsk tolkning av Väsen. Kanske var det just de
melodierna som Linné dansade till vid festerna på Hammarby.
Ulf Gustavsson
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