HURDY-GURDY
In 1990, I saw a picture of Totte's hurdy gurdy in a magazine portrait of Hedningarna. We had just started our own band, Garmarna, and were digging deep to find something sexier than the line-up of fiddle, guitar and banjo we were using. For a 16 year old with a new-found Folk Fetish going on, the sheer sight of this instrument was mind boggling. Had to have one! It took me a year of research and waiting for it to be built, but when it finally arrived everything clicked. The core focus in the music I wanted to do was found. To me, the appeal of the Swedish hurdy gurdy that we use lies within its incompleteness. It's raw and unfinished. It wants to do everything but isn't quite fit to do so. The beauty of the music comes from how fragile it sounds when something so raw wants to sing something beautiful. I've never been very interested in the history of the instrument, just fascinated by its possibilites in music today. Nothing can replace it, nothing can sound so mysterious or powerful. Its attempt to do everything has earned it a reputation of being a "medieval synthesizer" and that's where this record takes its starting point. For years, Totte and I have been busy trying to make this stubborn instrument work in places it doesn't naturally belong. Putting mics on the hurdy gurdy - without knowing how to do so in the first place - has produced a lot of sounds never heard before, sounds that causes laughs in the rehearsing rooms: "The insect is awake!" Since this is our reality, we've grown to love this second nature of the instrument. It's hidden and new and we've explored it to the maximum on this disc. The idea of the medieval synthesizer is slightly updated to the idea of our own homebrewed idea of a synthesizer, recording hours of natural and not so natural sounds from our instruments and chopping it up in our Macs. Everything audible here is original Hurdy Gurdy sounds, that's a guarantee! This represents the end of a search for us but it's also a start. We now have the tools and the idea clear in our minds. Our world of wood, gut strings, cranks and lap-tops might seem pretty small but we are proud of it and you are very, very welcome to join!
Love,
Stefan Brisland-Ferner
