MERIT HEMMINGSON/HUVVA! 4E 062-34273 (-71) SWEDEN

For backgound please also check previous posts on her "Merit Hemmingson Plays" https://monolover.blogspot.com/2018/01/merit-hemmingson-plays-cas-22-68-sweden.html  and "Trollskog" https://monolover.blogspot.com/2018/02/merit-hemmingsontrollskog-4e-062-34604.html  albums. This was the first of three subtitled "Svensk Folkmusik På Beat" (Swedish Folk Music On Beat). Here she's rediscovering old tonal themes as "köuk" (herding calls) and "jojk" (a Sami prelingual avowal where surrounding phenonema are sung, thus creating a bond between singer and nature). There's also remakes of traditional Scandinavian folk tunes and an old fäbodpsalm (chalet hymn). All carefully dressed in modern drag as jazz or beat, yet with remaining pristine atmosphere. While the second in the serie - "Trollskog" (Troll Forest) - had twenty pieces woven together and can be percieved as scetchy and hard to get in to for the uninitiated, this has much better flow and to my ears a more tender outcome. Most of it instrumental with occational chanting. Backing very various - moving between jazzy, fully orchestrated and solo fiddling. And if you're like me and enjoy getting embraced by some good organ there's a lot of that too from Merit and her Hammond B3. Title word "Huvva" comes from a Swedish northern dialect. Hard to translate, but could mean "yikes" or sometimes "awe" when used in the compound word "huvvaligen" and then, depending on situation, connoting both "awful" and "awesome". This release was Swedish only, also on cassette (7C 262 35870) and some of the cuts can be found on the 2005 CD "Merit - Queen Of Swedish Hammond Folk Groove" (Amigo AMSCD 111). First had label as shown here and laminated fold/out cover. (SCÄ*) (CCÖ*) (FÄV*)