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CD
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CAP 21807CD
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"A large church organ with an infinite number of celestial sounds, colours, and moods; a nyckelharpa, this genuinely Swedish folk instrument, as if sprung from the earth -- an old being in itself. These instruments, played by two of our foremost conjurors of the instruments in question, in a wild but tender dance where earth meets sky, the ancient meets the brand new, and hardship meets joy. The prominent conjurors in question are of course the nyckelharpa player Johan Hedin and the organ virtuoso Gunnar Idenstam, and this album, Latar II, is the duo's second -- their first album was released in 2004, also on the Caprice label -- and is yet another innovative mixture of old Swedish folk tunes and newly written material. Their music is rooted in Swedish folk music but feels brand new, as the music is created and shaped in the encounter between these two innovators; it twists and turns along mysterious paths, dresses up in symphonic clothing, invokes sacred moods, swirls about in danceable polskas, and sings its lyrical melodies. In short, it is an invitation into a fantastic new world, or as the BBC writer Fiona Talkington writes in the album's liner notes, 'So step into this world of gothic shadows, baroque elegance, fiery furnaces and frozen summits, broken hearts and laughter, of tunes which were hummed by our grandparents, of sounds which they would flee from, but most of all give yourself up wholeheartedly to this inspired creation and dance and weep along the way.'"
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