A

Product Details

Artist : Knut Hamre & Steve Tibbetts
Binding : Audio CD
EAN : 0031257143820
Label : Hannibal
Number of Discs : 1
Product Group : Music
Release Date : 1999-02-02
UPC : 031257143820

ASIN : B00000I04K

Track Listings for

Disc-1
1. Olav Bergsland
2. Huldra-Mi
3. Trebakken
4. Huldreslatter
5. Noringen
6. Ande
7. Fjellmanngjenta
8. Huldreslatt
9. Spelar Guro
10. Baansull
11. Bygdatraen
12. Baansull

Editorial Reviews

From Amazon.com

Steve Tibbetts doesn't make it easy. The innovative Minneapolis-based guitarist has cut some of the most idiosyncratic albums to come out of the German ECM label. Since moving to Hannibal/Rykodisc, he's given them the difficult but critically acclaimed album called Chö, setting the chants and hymns of Tibetan nun Choying Drolma to an abstract ambient landscape. Now there's A, an album of ambient chamber works centered on the hardingfele, or Hardanger fiddle. The hardingfele is a violin with a flat bridge and sympathetic strings like a sitar. Usually played as a solo instrument, it sounds to the uninitiated like fiddler Vassar Clements playing an Indian raga after his dog has died. But once you get past the atonality of the instrument, it opens up a world of hardscrabble tradition and that isolated, forlorn character that goes deeper than a Nordic cliché. Steve Tibbetts has been intoxicated by this sound for years, and on A he teams up with Norwegian hardingfele player Knut Hamre, clearly a Heifitz of hardingfele. Joined by a core group of fellow hardingfele player Turid Spildo, Tibbetts's longtime percussionist Marc Anderson, and jazz bassist Anthony Cox, the guitarist orchestrates ambient improvisations and atmospheres that hark back to his ECM debut, Northern Song. Like that album, A--also recorded in Norway--brims with haunting moods and textures that splinter like the spider-web cracks of an ice-covered lake. This isn't Norwegian folk music. Instead, it's the hardingfele spirit that is steeped in Nordic mythology and legends of trolls. You can just picture the gnarled creatures cavorting to Tibbetts and Hamre's dance. --John Diliberto

Customer Reviews

A slow, ecstatic burn (2000-02-17)

This music is a portal into the heart of ecstacy... the seething burn of the fiddles are barely tested by Tibbetts' cool moodwork, as the slow fire burns and burns and burns... if you supply the desire, you'll go higher. Tibbetts' previous Hannibal outing, "Cho," is cooler in tone, intimate yet with lots of space, a perfect foil for this one, which just keeps stoking the flames of yearning. No, it's not the old Steve Tibbetts... and yet, it IS... looking for new connections. Yeah, Steve: the stuff you're doing now (on Hannibal) is expansive - in the best sense of the word. Keep going, please. The rest of you, click on the audio samples and jump in.

Very unlike standard Tibbetts fare. (1999-12-16)

Long ago I used to listen to Steve Tibbetts albums. Now I listen to his CD's. But this particular duet is missing something. It's not bad. It's very restful and relaxing. Yet most Tibbetts music has a dynamic quality: some pieces wind you up, and some relax you. This entire album relaxes to the point where you may start to wonder: how are the musicians staying awake? But if you are a serious Tibbetts fan, it's worth having.

Really, really dull. Tibbetts has released much better work. (1999-11-19)

Each "song" on this record sounds just like the previous one. And they don't sound that good. Now, I am a huge fan of Steve Tibbetts. YR, Safe Journey, Exploded View, these are all fanatastic recordings filled with beauty and wonder. However, this record is dull and boring. Not "good dull" like "Northern Song", which is a subtle, mysterious "ambient" record.

Bottom line: when ECM releases a lot of records by an artist, then fails to release a new record by that same artist, there is reason to worry. (This record was released by Hanibal Records, all previous Tibbetts records have been released on ECM, with the exception of last year's "Cho").

Does Manfred Eicher (the founder and head of ECM records) have good taste in music? In a word: YES. After all, its not the case that ECM is in this business because they make tons of cash...

In case you wonder why I say this, the most recent record from Stephan Micus (Beyond 11 Deserts) is similar to this record: not good, and not released by ECM records.

Look for similar items by category

• Styles > Jazz
• Styles > Rock > Progressive

Related Link