Reviews
Artist:Emma And Ellika Album: Vadar
Label: Kakafon
Tracks: 12
Website: https://www.recordshopx.com/artist/emma_ellika/vader/
VADER (Weather) is an album of fiddle and viola music, a mixture of Swedish traditional music and compositions by Emma Reid and Ellika Frisell, who make up the duo Emma and Ellika. Traditional opener "Maklins Brufmarsch" and "Vals Efter Blecko" are delights, with the beautifully played and recorded instruments singing together. However the album really opens up with "Till Abdul / Tiden" a pair of tunes composed by Frisell and Reid respectively. Here the duo are joined by Anders Lofberg and Rafael Sida and the sound develops another dimension with plucked strings, Anders' cello and Rafael's rich percussion building up an infectious pulse. The hypnotic, plucking continues behind the bowed melody on the eerie "Johannas Brudpolska". From the first look at the figures, dark against the snow and weather you know this is going to an album of charged emotional music.
The long track comprised of "Stormhatt" and Langsamheten" is a huge almost ceremonial sounding dance. The plucked and bowed cello and Sida's furious percussion create a strong pulse that the two fiddle players fly over. The second tune is a definite album highlight with a sinuous jazzy slink to its rhythm, while still managing to maintain an air of suspense and mystery right up to the last second.
However alive the four piece tracks are, the atmosphere and space around the two players on "Spindeln", "Til Per" and "Bingsjo skanklat" are a masterclass in instrumental duets. The two musicians manage to evoke echoes of bird song in Reid's swirling "Talamodslangtan".
As a duo the music is light and beautiful, but the addition of the rhythm section on the quartet tracks like the mysterious closer "Vilse I Boda" both contrast that mistiness perfectly and show that the Emma Ellika Extra band has the potential to be an absolute monster. A quartet that is savage on "Langsamheten" and strangely soothing as "Vilse I Boda" closes.
Marc Higgins
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