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Frigg's Finnish fiddling coming to Chandler
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The Bare Montpelier Times Argus, Frigg's Finnish fiddling coming to Chandler >>
Put five fiddles on a stage at one time and you won't necessarily have a string orchestra. You might though, if you get Frigg, a band from Finland whose music is so energetic and intelligent that only the most lead footed won't be toe tapping or dancing in their seat. Find out when the band plays the Chandler Music Hall on Saturday, Oct. 11.
If you're familiar with Finnish neo-traditional music then the group JPP might come to mind. That band also featured several fiddlers and a bass and keyboard player. Frigg has more instrumentation, including guitar, bass, mandolin and percussion in its lineup. Also, in a few select places, we hear dobro, an instrument usually part of a bluegrass ensemble. But, this is a fiddle-based ensemble unlike anything you've likely heard or seen before.
Thus, Frigg – named for the wife of Norse god Odin and considered the Norse goddess of love and fertility – is more than just a world-class Finnish folk ensemble. It has a world music sound, with snippets of the aforesaid bluegrass, and touches of Cajun and Celtic mixed in with its native sound.
I caught Frigg recently through the Internet in several YouTube.com video segments. They were playing somewhere in Europe at festivals and the audience was dancing in the aisles, attacking the stage, and seemed in a frenzy of Scandinavian ecstasy. All this excitement is for a relatively young and certainly attractive band of men with one woman playing primarily the music of its far north homeland.
This is not hip-hop with violins. Neither is it heavy metal a la Mozart, or any other affected music. Frigg relies on its own Finnish down-home sound and style for its own tunes.
Its most recent CD is "Economy Class" and a fitting title it is. In just over 37 minutes the band whips out 10 numbers, just two of them with vocals, and all but one, a waltz, were fast-paced dance numbers. Of course, in a studio there's time to make sure no one fractures a note or sideswipes a beat, but even onstage in the videos, the fiddlers seem to be of one physical body.
Really good fiddling of any style produces its own palpable beat and this is very true with Frigg. Even with percussion and guitar for added rhythmic enhancement, and a bass fiddle to give a more dynamic range to the sound, the fiddles alone will have an audience in a melodic and beat-driven trance. It's impossible to avoid the contagious nature of this musical idiom.
I'm sure Frigg will sing several songs, most likely in Finnish, during their concert in this venerable hall. Since the Finns, like all Scandinavians, consider English a second language there should be a good translation before the song begins. And, this band should sing. While fiddling is the primary vehicle behind this band's existence, the vocalists have good voices.
We won't get too far into the background of this exciting Finnish import but a few things should be noted. The band comes from a region where fiddling is almost a mandatory activity. The members come from the small Finnish village of Järvelä. According to their publicity, the joke is that if your name is Järvelä, you were born with a fiddle in your hand. Band leader and bass player Antti Järvelä notes that people always ask, "Are you one of those Järveläs?" He, like many people in this western region of Finland, carries the surname of the village in which they were born.
There is no doubt that fiddling is in the blood and bones of this band. They are currently on tour promoting their new album and we, in central Vermont, are lucky the Chandler has booked them for a concert. If you like traditional music or fiddling of any kind and style, this band will knock your socks off.
-- by Art Edelstein 10/03/08 >> go there
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