HEGE RIMESTAD
The Seed Keeper
Turn Left 28

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Subtitled ‘A musical tribute to the farmers of India,’ this is a document of a trip Norweigan fiddler Rimestad took to the subcontinent, travelling and playing with local musicians and recording found sounds of machines, markets, nature and more and matching it with her own playing. A pioneer of the electric violin, she can make her instrument sounds like so many things (on “The Slow Side of Dehra Dun,” for instance, it’s exactly like a harmonica. There are layers of sound, found, made and manipulated. It’s also the outcome of political discussions involving the state of farming, whether organic or seeds supplied by Monsanto. All this becomes a part of the music, making it a fraction of a more expansive debate and whole. Much of the album doesn’t sound specifically Indian, with a couple of exceptions, such as “In The Evening,” but Rimestad’s tradition is Nordic. At times beautifully atmospheric, at other driving cacophony, it’s a picture of India, the cities, towns and countryside, seen through foreign eyes.

— Chris Nickson