Anna Lindblad
med vänner
Lindblad, Anna

www.annalindblad.se
 

The new album, med vänner, from young Swedish fiddler Anna Lindblad abounds with triumphant joy. Which is something of a strange thing to say about Swedish fiddling, especially for someone like me who was raised on the dark, terrifying, troll-driven sounds of traditional fiddlers like Bjorn Stäbi. But the tagline on this album, which proves very accurate, is “Contemporary Fiddle Tradition with an Infectiously Positive Attitude.” With med vänner, Lindblad has cherry-picked deeply beautiful and joyous tunes from across the tradition, and cunningly arranged them to become soaring masterworks. To do this, she draws from her long-running interest in other fiddle traditions. On the album, she features powerhouse American old-time tunes, one from John Salyer and one from Marcus Martin, as well as Québécois tunes and tunes of her own composition. Your ear will be tricked into thinking that there’s some kind of thread tying the fiddle rhythms of Sweden to Louisiana’s Cajun country on “Flander’s Dream,” or some kind of link between the heavy drones of Appalachian old-time fiddling and Swedish fiddle doubling or tripling. There isn’t really a link, it’s just that she pulling rhythmic, melodic and arranging ideas from all of these other places into her own tradition to transform her own music.

What’s nice about Anna’s music is that she obviously bases this fusion of many different musical interests on the fellow musicians she plays with who inspire her. The album’s title, med vänner, translates to “with friends,” and as she says in the liner notes, “Music has, for me, always meant friendship. Friendships with people, place, tunes. Thanks to music I’ve made lifelong friends around the world.” And what friends! Louisiana’s Dirk Powell (Balfa Toujours, T-Bone Burnett) guests on banjo, world-class stepdancer Nic Gareiss joins in on the lovely French-Canadian tune “Reel des menteries,” Roger Tallroth of star Swedish rootsters Väsen plays guitar throughout, bringing his endlessly thoughtful and inventive accompaniment, and Colorado fiddler Ryan Drickey seconds many of Anna’s fiddle lines. Each guest meshes perfectly with Anna’s fiddling, but I think rather than viewing this as an album with a mighty guest list, it might be better to view this as part of a larger trans-Atlantic movement bringing Nordic roots closer to American traditions. Most of the players guesting here and Anna herself have spent years pushing this movement and I think we’re starting to see it bear fruit. What a grand time to be discovering new music and making lifelong connections. Hail to the new generation of traditional musicians! Long may they reign.

— Devon Leger