Category: Sweden

Tarabband: Yekhaf

May 1, 2023

Art takes us deeper into headlines and history: We wouldn’t have the same understanding of the Spanish Civil War without Guernica; Les Misérables is a lens on the trials of nineteenth-century Parisians. Like Picasso and Hugo, Iraqi-Egyptian singer-songwriter Nadin Al Khalidi is an artist for whom exile amplifies insight. She channels personal experience and stories of voiceless people to illuminate the world as she has seen it: The encounters and destinies of refugees and immigrants … More Tarabband: Yekhaf

Ebo Krdum: Diversity

June 24, 2022

The world has largely turned its attention away from Darfur, where war and genocide raged between 2003 and 2010, and where conflict still simmers. Ebo Krdum is one of many from the western Sudan region who have not forgotten the carnage and he has a message in his music—expressing not bitterness but pluralistic values. Krdum was still in his teens when he began singing and speaking out against a violent, corrupt regime that had no tolerance … More Ebo Krdum: Diversity

Maher Cissoko: Cissoko Heritage

December 1, 2021

The elements of contemporary music—performers, instruments, genres, modes of consumption—are at the mercy of changeable tastes and racing technology. But consider the extraordinary endurance of West Africa’s griots, musical bearers of history and lore who have kept their art relevant for more than 500 years. Likely explanations for their survival include heredity (griot status passing from parent to child); the timeless thirst for the … More Maher Cissoko: Cissoko Heritage

Louisa Lyne & di Yiddishe Kapelye: Lust

June 9, 2020

Louisa Lyne’s art is inserting Yiddish songs into unexpected contexts. On her third album she and her band put the traditional language of Ashkenazi Jews into creative dialogue with Spanish, English, Hebrew and her native Swedish; mix period pieces with new—sometimes surprising—material; and season with klezmer, tango, jazz, Central European cabaret, Cuban and West African sounds. In Lyne’s … More Louisa Lyne & di Yiddishe Kapelye: Lust

Kongero: Kom

June 19, 2019

The title track of Kom (Come), Kongero’s fourth album, is a siren song—traditional, to be sure, but meant to beguile listeners in real time: “Come, come…/You young, enticed, dazzled, wounded…/You cannot escape/Hear the bells of temptation.” The motives of the four women who offer the a cappella chant are benevolent—thankfully, because their magic actually works. To say that Kongero … More Kongero: Kom

Folk’Avant: Gryningsland

November 13, 2017

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 … More Folk’Avant: Gryningsland

CajsaStina Åkerström: Vreden och Stormen

October 11, 2016

For a moment, time stands still… A song begins, seemingly in mid-conversation, drawing you in… Suddenly, you are above the landscape, flying on a melody. This is the effect of CajsaStina Åkerström, a Swedish singer-songwriter who started adult life as an archaeologist but changed careers (her father was one of the country’s leading folksingers) and climbed to the height of stardom; her trajectory mirrors her steady, soothing voice, with hypnotic lows … More CajsaStina Åkerström: Vreden och Stormen

Tarabband: Ashofak Baden

August 9, 2016

The musical seeds are familiar: Childhood violin lessons, a preference for Dylan and Joan Baez; first lyrics penned in English, first performance folk, dreams of starting a punk band. But this story belongs to Baghdad-born Nadin Al Khalidi, who found refuge in Sweden. Only after crossing a cultural bridge did she discover she could also become one. Al Khalidi is the heart and soul of Tarabband (from tarab, meaning “ecstasy in music.”), her soothing … More Tarabband: Ashofak Baden