The Sound of Light
Listening Post 124. Step away from the urgent world and into the dazzling universe of Gryningsland (Daybreak), by the Swedish-Finnish trio Folk’Avant. Anna Wikenius, Maija Kauhanen and Anna Rubinsztein—who met at Stockholm’s Royal College of Music—call their self-composed songs “experimental Nordic folk,” and they produce a sound that’s both tight (three voices, two instruments) and spacious. Drift on leisurely opening movements that merge into symphonic soundscapes, relish the strings and savor the poetry (the liner notes provide English excerpts). The theme of daybreak—separating darkness and light, dreaming and wakefulness, allegory and reality—runs through most of the 10 songs; in the six-minute title track Rubinsztein’s violin heralds the retreat of darkness while Kauhanen’s kantele offers the sonic equivalent of sunbeams illuminating dewdrops. In 9 augusti (9th of August), stealth sets the tone: “Silently… we sneaked into a house where everyone else was asleep,” sings lead vocalist Wikenius, in Swedish, “Awake all night, you finally packed, closed the door, leaving your scent in a bed sheet where a warm body rests” (video 1). Ljusmontör (The Light Maker), inspired by the poet Nils Ferlin, describes a glass-eyed sprite who can find things hidden under the snow: “When everything slumbers in cold haze and nothing wants to revive/He emerges from his old saga, making cracks in cold crystal” (video 2). Budapest, representing the album’s earthly side, recalls a brief encounter in a romantic place (sung in Swedish and Finnish): “You say we only exist for a little while and yet nothing else you said was true/But we will always have our Budapest” (video 3). Experimental the music may be, but here’s a key finding: Give Gryningsland the attention it merits and, rest assured, the world will still be there, maybe a bit less urgent, when you get back to it. (Nordic Notes)
