The Nordic Fiddlers Bloc

Deliverance

(NFB)

THE SECOND album from the Shetland-Norway-Sweden fiddle axis reflects the developing relationship between three players who have been touring together since 2009 but also shows the essential compatibility in the traditions they represent. Nowhere is this better illustrated than on Halls Lilla Vals, a tune that was composed by a Swedish fiddler who thrived in the first half of the twentieth century, Jan-Erik Hall, and yet could easily have come from the Shetland or even the north-east of Scotland tradition. Hall’s countryman and namesake, Anders Hall, Norwegian Olav Luksengård Mjelva, who has composed half of these tracks, and Shetlander Kevin Henderson blend their natural understanding with great imagination, producing arrangements that encompass a fantastic range of tones and approaches. Mjelva’s initially haunting In the Lounge grows into something more celebratory with its big riffs and swirling melodiousness and the keening, hymn-like Flinken builds into a marvellously atmospheric blast of harmony and sustained cross-string bowing. Altogether a model example of tradition in joyful, superbly inventive transition.

Rob Adams