Why are Swedish folk tunes so darn beautiful?

I’ll never forget the first time I heard a Swedish folk tune, listening in on a “scandi session” at a fiddle camp. The tunes sounded so different to the lilting Irish, guttural Scottish and cheeky American tunes I was used to hearing and playing. There’s this ringing beauty of mountains and blue skies, this modality between the major and minor that creates an musical imaginary landscape of strange and exquisite things. The instrument was even stranger! A nyckelharpa, this giant violin with keys, gears and layers of strings. You have to see it to believe it. 

Lach got really into the Swedish band called Väsen this year, it’s one of those things he found when he was looking for bands that were like Le Vent du Nord (his favourite Hurdy Gurdy-playing band). At first he thought there were four people in the band, but it turns out it was just this highly resonant special tuning the guitarist was using. Which Lach promptly got obsessed with. 

We fell in love with this Väsen tune called ‘Forslund’ and we spent ages working out the curly rhythms so we could arrange it for Broken Creek. It has a stunning stillness to it, “forslund” means waterfall grove, and I think you can hear that in the music. You can hear our version on our YouTube channel here:

See what you think - can you hear the waterfall in it? 

While you’re there, like and subscribe because we have some other tunes in the works for you. 

Thanks friends,

Erin & Lach

P.S. 

We highly recommend the Väsen album Keyed Up as a starting point for your Väsen listening. One of our favourite musical finds of 2021. 

Also, This is one of Lachlan’s favourite things on YouTube featuring lots of very old instruments, one of which is a nyckelharpa.