One of Finland’s folk music spearheads internationally has been, for over two decades already, the masterful Frigg. They both continue and reform the Finnish folk and fiddle traditions as they swing from very traditional to very original, sometimes album by album.
Two albums back, they released the inventive FriXX that was also meant as a launch to their 20th anniversary tour that never happened, due to the pandemic.
In 2023, Frigg released Perintö, whose title means both “heritage” and “inheritance”. That one was trad tunes only, a kind of reset and back to the roots.
And now, released just a couple of weeks ago, we get Dreamscapes, an antithesis to Perintö, an album whose title and cover art are in sync with the content. It may be Frigg’s most adventurous and even ambitious album to date, and considering their entire back catalogue, that’s saying a lot.
Dreamscapes, all original material by several members of the band, comes with a colorful palette of tunes, few of which are simple. After the short prologue of Daydream 1 – Bridge, we get Valsette, an elegant piece that invites us safely to the journey.
But immediately after, we are thrown head first into the wildly growing prog folk forest of Västkusten Twist, “West Coast Twist”. The coast in this case is Finland’s Swedish-speaking (ergo the title) west coast.
I assume the melodies in the tune have elements typical of that region’s fiddle tradition – but I doubt the very complex and definitely undanceable time signatures were ever a part of it. I have played my share of prog rock over the years but figuring this one out would take me quite a while… Frigg play this tune with both exquisite precision and wild abandon, if that combination is even possible.
When that twister subsides, we can breathe and rest for the next couple of tunes. Allikko (“a shallow pond”) – paints a vibrant aural picture of a summer’s day.
Ilon haikeus could be bluntly translated as “sadness of joy” but “haikeus” is not really sadness, sorrow or longing… It’s a feeling you have when saying goodbye to a friend you know you won’t meet in a long time, or the feeling you get when you realize summer is almost over and you look back on the sunny days. It’s sad, but there’s a small smile that accompanies it. Frigg gives this mixing of emotions a beautiful musical form.
The rest of the album offers so many more intricate goodies, I will let you find them yourselves. But I can’t not mention Vittra Square Dance, a tune that carries loads of musical ideas – and would probably not be a hit at a real square dance event 😄 Perhaps my favorite on this album!
Dreamscapes escapes the boundaries of the Finnish-Scandinavian folk music where its roots lie deep. Frigg, born into and marinated from an early age in the Finnish fiddle culture in around Kaustinen (location of the annual massive folk music festival) are a band of forceful artists in their own right and they create a world based on, but not chained to, their home turf.
Join this dream. It’s truly worth it.
FolkNotes 