Agnes Buen Garnås & Jan Garbarek - Margjit Og Targjei Risvollo (via
Generally, when a contemporary twist is put on Scandinavian folk music the result seems to go down the lines of heavy metal and it works. I'm sure they could have done something very similar with this, but by going down gentler lines they've just come up with something totally hypnotic. It would have to be to keep the attention for 16 minutes though and it does it without you even consciously noticing.
However, I don't seem to be able to get away from the idea that it somehow sounds like it should be used on the soundtrack for an epic fantasy film like the Lord of the Rings and it just brings to me sweeping images of New Zealand countryside as a result.
(LJs spell checker doesn't seem to like New Zealand - well more the Zealand part, it's happy with New - are there no New Zealanders on here in that case or are they just happy to be told they're always spelling their home country wrong?)