I was wondering if any of you are fans of Nordic Roots-Norse/Celtic trad. music? Groups from the “Northside Collection”, like Hedningarna, Loituma, Varttina and Swap?
I’ve got the first two. Pretty good stuff. Boot, SWAP, Hedningarna, Garmarna, and Annbjorg Lien are stand-outs on Volume 2.
Cheers,
Aaron
Absolutly!!!
We just had the Nordic Roots Festival here in the Twin Cities two weeks ago.
I went to a very interesting workshop with Elisabeth Vatyn from Tigerlilly. She is a piper from Norway. It was very interesting to speak with her about reviving nordic bagpipe music. The similarities in experience between the people who are working in the gaelic and nordic traditions is facinating.
I didn’t make it to any of the concerts because it was a choice between playing and listening. I always choose playing.
Try Faust: feirce traditional nordic music
http://home.swipnet.se/kometen2/faust/index_eng.htm
Fun stuff.
BL
You can find some good videos of music from various Scandanavian and Baltic countries here: http://www.tvfolk.net/video.html My favorites are Frifot, Vasen, and Bask-all Swedish.
Steve
Yompin’ yimminy! Väsen, Swåp, Trä: yah, sure, you betcha. 
Carina Normansson definitely has C.P. status! 
As long as we’re talking CPs go to the tv folk page that I mentioned, click on the Estonian flag and play the first video there, Roosipuna.
Steve
So do you recommend any of the three northside collections over others? I need to fill out an Amazon order for the free shipping (pathetic I know, spend more to save a few bucks) and would like to throw in a couple of the northside CD’s.
Thanks for the tip!
Mark V.
Volume 2 is better in terms of variety. You have less repetition of bands so each track is more unique and you get exposed to a wider range artists.
Cheers,
Aaron
Me too. I have individual albums by quite a few as well as the excellent Nordic Roots compilation 2. Favourites include Varttina, JPP, Gjallarhorn, Vasen, Annbjorg Lien, Troka and Maria Kalaneimi. (I also like the more jazzy end of Nordic progressive rock but I suppose that’s another story.)
In the past, I’ve speculated on this board about just how much of the similarity to Celtic music is borrowed and how much is the product of having, in part, a common heritage. Obviously, fiddle tunes as such did not come to Scotland and Ireland with the Vikings, but there might have been enough influence on folk song to account for some of the obvious similarities. We can, I think, assume that the Shetlands are, culturally, at least as Nordic as Celtic, but their music fits well into the complex Scottish and Irish tapestry of sounds—another dialect of the same language.