Frode Haltli

Words like "transcendent" and "sublime" get bandied about a great deal in music journalism, but Jen and I were lucky enough to see something recently that we both agreed merited both words - Norwegian accordianist Frode Haltli performing his recent album Passing Images, the concert which closed this year's Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.

The record is a series of traditional Nordic folk songs reinterpreted in a contemporary way alongside Haltli's own compositions. Playing on the record and with him in Huddersfield were singer/vocalist Maya Ratkje, viola player Garth Knox and trumpeter (and PIAIL fave) Arve Henriksen.

Knox ranged from sudden dramatic swathes to near-inaudible high-tensile rapture; Ratkje, as well as providing effortlessly soaring passages, contributed an astonishing range of clicks, whistles and ululations to evoke an organic, outdoor sound-world.

Henriksen is simply perfect here. Not only does he make having sloping shoulders look cool (jealous), his own interests – the natural world, acknowledging heritage alongside sonic envelope-pushing – match those of Haltli. His signature sound, a kind of freeze-dried Don Cherry, dovetailed precisely with the coolly alive physicality of this music. But his instrument burst towards other poles, from 808-like robotics on “Lude” to the warmly brash Miles Davis of “Vandring”.

As for Haltli, he wrings every possible sound from his accordion, from piercingly blank high-end to convulsing mumbling; from doom-laden drones to hymnal beauty. The sight of an accordion being played with such sensitivity is mesmerising, the impossible full length of it exposed like a conjurer’s trick, its crenelated curves like some strange Scandinavian mollusc.

The inexorability of its ebb and flow is the perfect visual complement for his work, which folds in every drip of snowmelt and rustle of pine, every faded footprint and half-remembered melody, before unfurling it all in a thrillingly fresh way and yet still on its own terms. This concert was uplifting in a way that only the most wondrous natural sights can usually create – this is music that moves with the logic of starlings, with the half-life of sunset.

Here's a couple of tracks from the record, which has shot straight to the upper echelons of my year's best list:

Frode Haltli - Vandring (alternative ZShare link)
Frode Haltli - Jag Haver Ingen Karare (alternative ZShare link)