Here’s an unusual one from Matteus Blad who is Swedish-Finnish and also an actor and artist. Well it is Christmas and the time of year when something slightly off the beaten track is welcome.
On November 15th (I‘m making an exception from the usual one month rule), he released ‘LUNGOR’, “a new album consisting of twelve poetically written songs rooted in the Nordic visa tradition — intimate, text-driven songs moving between the personal and the political.”
By ‘Nordic visa’ he isn’t talking about the Nordic Passport Union or Schengen rules or about the historical ease of travel between the Nordic countries.
Rather he alludes to the Scandinavian ballad tradition of poetic singer-songwriters; one that is both a respected art form and an important basis of the popular Scandinavian sing-along tradition. The Swedish word “ballad” is a subtype of “visa” that tells a story in many verses, similar to the medieval ballads. The Swedish ballads can be performed to a big orchestra but are often sung to fairly simple accompaniment on guitar, or other instruments such as piano or accordion.
So now you know.
In fact I quickly realised that we have featured some of these songs in the past, from Swedish artists like Le Lac Long 814, Daniel Östersjö, Elin Lyth, and others that move in their sophisticated circle.
For the sample track I went straight to the first one, ‘gryning’ (I’ll use lower case as he does), which translates as ‘Dawn.’ Also because it is of average length on an album that features tracks as short as 1:06 and as long as 8:50.
My first reaction was that I’d somehow switched on ‘Carols for Christmas’, the traditional Christmas Eve high church service that the BBC broadcasts, in one of its rare annual excursions into religion.
Or perhaps the recording of a Royal coronation.
If you imagine that mixed up with a popular piano melody that is played over it then that covers the first quarter of the song, after which it becomes something more profound, a multi-voiced arrangement that could equally accompany particularly tense moments in ‘The Greatest Story Ever Told’ or the ending of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’
I’m sure that these songs weren’t written with anything like this in mind at all but it does go to show that it is all about circumstance and interpretation and I’d happily spend some time over the Christmas break listening to this album – which is rich in variety – in more contemplative detail.
Only one other track, ‘koral’, approximates to ‘gryning’, several are guitar based and feature quite aggressively sung lyricism, some of them are like mini operas and one sounds like it was penned by Jethro Tull.
Well I did say “unusual” didn’t I?
(Continues after the Spotify link).
The album was recorded at Finnvox Studios in Helsinki.
Alongside the album, the song lyrics were also published as a carefully designed book with an accompanying CD.
Find him on:
Website: https://matteusblad.fi/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bladmatteus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bladmatteus/
Photo: Oscar Zemarti
