FolkWorld #79 11/2022
© Erling Olsen / GO’ Danish Folk Music

FolkWorld 25th Anniversary 1997-2022


Honourable everyone! It’s a great pleasure to present: VÄRMLANDSNYTT. Imagine yourself on a festival, outdoor convention or a great party. Preferably the folk music festival “Ransäter Spelmansstämma”. There’s people jamming music in the background, and you’ve held out until 5 in the morning. Sun is about to rise, and it’s still a bit cold, but it doesn’t bother you, it’s a killer party! Low fog is still sweeping the meadows or over the water, and someone starts this tune in the jam in the background. People join in and everyone realizes this will be the showstopper, the last tune of the night. Roughly translated, Värmlandsnytt means “news from Värmland”. Which in and of itself is just wrong, since this is a set of two very old traditional tunes from Eda in Värmland, western Sweden. First a polska after Olof Andersson, then another one after Magnus Olsson.

Let Folk Be Pop Again!

Kurbits & Flames! Third album by Spöket i köket, out 3/9 -22!

Spöket i köket

Artist Video Spöket i köket @ FROG

www.spoketikoket.com

What is Spöket i köket? It translates roughly to ”The ghost in the kitchen”. A very ambitious project that has been touring around northern and western Europe since 2015. A ten piece band playing about twenty instruments, a force of nature folk fusion big band. A lot has been said about Spöket, ”lounge/rave-band”, ”gangsta-folk”, ”moonshine folk music”, and lot’s of other things.

The orchestra has it’s heels firmly in the ground of Nordic and Canadian folk music tradition, with the toes peeking out into manouche jazz, heavy metal, big band music, and a big dose of party potential. Nominated to ”Newcomer of the year” in 2017 for the first album Den nya spisen at the Swedish Folk Music Gala, and to both ”Album of the year” and ”Composer of the year” (Nisse Blomster) in 2019 for the the second album Château du garage at the Danish Folk Music Awards.

Spöket i köket

Spöket i köket "Kurbits & Flames", Gammalthea, 2022

So what is Kurbits & Flames?

It's our high-octane turbocharged reimagination of traditional Swedish folk music. A catastrophony consisting only of existing and future jam hits on Swedish folk music festivals, deliberately blown to pieces in our effort to both honor and hassle our heritage. It's “traditional folk” in the sense that it has to be approachable,easy and open enough for everyone to participate, but also intricate, unique and interesting enough for the tunes and dances to hold up for hundreds of years. By these measures, old folk music is just pop that isn’t pop anymore, but still has all that potential after all this time.

Kurbits(rose painting) is an old traditional art form, a way of decorating furniture and pottery. Very popular in the 1700s! Flames are what you would paint your own old school super awesome car with. Very popular in the 1950s! We’d like to imagine there is a connection here.

We’ve picked the tunes from our favourite old spelmän(≈fiddlers) from all over Sweden; a wide assortment of classics written by everything from magicians to murderers (at least partly true). As is tradition, the tunes and their authors are accompanied by a lot of intriguing stories about dedication, strife, heartbreak, buying a striped shirt so people will propose to you, and learning to play from the devil. We don’t have space to go into all of these great stories of old, but you are very welcome to visit a concert and hear the lies yourself.

Because this is supposed to be music that you want to take part in. To be there, jam the tunes yourself, dance to them, experience the culture first hand, and getinspired to write more. Let’s make it so - let folk be pop again!



Piping hot nuclear summer jazz folkmusic, basically. We were booked for two very nice gigs in Denmark. The trip was silly, first gig was dope, the accommodations were almost criminally sweet, then it suddenly became beer o'clock, Albin broke his foot, the rest went into headbanging, second gig went medieval on us, the sheriff let us by back over the Öresund strait, and then we went home to do some bookkeeping. Because everything was filmed, we decided to start a religion out of it. Then, when we calmed down a bit, we decided to make a single and music video out of it instead. And there's pretty much Spöket in a nutshell. Kill the absolutely most stupid ideas, but go totally to town on the SECOND most stupid idea. Bøn äppëtit.

Shuffle Bonanza is less of a title and more of a product description; you know what you’ll get. The tunes are actually from border regions around western Sweden. “Mörner-Helges rejländer” and “Gymnastikken” after Sigurd Fjeldstad.



Photo Credits: (1)-(2) Spöket i köket (unknown/website).


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