Salika, Molika

At first, Erlend Apneseth enjoyed the solitude of solo recording, then the Norwegian Hardanger fiddler formed a trio of great rapport with Øyvind Hegg-Lunde and Stephan Meidell, and now he's brought in another excellent artist from the Hubro stable, accordionist Frode Haltli. The music was a commission from the Kjøtt gallery in Bergen, and features several woven-in west Norwegian folk archive recordings.

The results are inescapably evocative, but the presence of ‘found’ texts or ambient samples might irritate the ears, becoming overly familiar, and stripping the pieces of their potential for repeated listening. The fiddle, accordion, zither and baritone guitar frequently combine into shared textures, gently re-shaped via effects, these acoustic instruments surrounded by a dispersing halo of electronically altered natures. Delicately plucked strings flit above what sounds like a very large and deep frame drum. Haltli also provides some extremely low lines on his accordion.The players are well versed in crafting sparse environmental scenes, but the first two tracks feature tipped-in vocal samples that might detract from a listener's desired state of concentrated intensity. Then, the fourth track ‘Pyramiden’ sounds like the essence of Norwegian folk tradition, and Apneseth further enhances his vision of a subtly transformed old-meets-new, grafting delicate shoots onto gnarled boles. His phrases have tiny decorative flourishes, while Haltli's playing has an enlarged, churchy reverberance.