Rundsnurrknurr

My first encounter with Hans Hulbækmo was when he was a final year student at the Trondheim Conservatoire, the outstanding drummer in the deliciously quirky jazz-and-beyond trio Moskus. He’d grown up surrounded by folk royalty with his much-respected musician parents Tone Hulbækmo and Hans Fredrik Jacobsen, and his brother Alf Hulbækmo, so no surprise that Hans was soon developing his own style and identity and bringing them into various new projects. He was soon courted by some of the great names on the Norwegian music scene including the power-house band Atomic and forming the successful glitter and sequins band Broen. All of which serves to prepare you for this quite out-of-the-ordinary family album of Norwegian dance tunes. These tunes sound as if they’ve just leapt out from a dusty archive and are determined to party. Different tunings create a brilliant east-west vibe, and there’s a huge, ever-changing palette of instruments, a riot of colour: lyres and kantele, pump organ, saxophone, accordion, mouth harp, voices and, of course, a style of drumming which is mischievously confusing and a sheer delight. Here are 17 tracks which defy expectation, which render the listener helpless, exhausted and grinning from ear to ear.