Folkesange
Myrkur
Relapse RR7426
2020
I was driving around listening to one of my favorite DJs Pat Murphy on KXLU when I heard him play a stunning version of "House Carpenter" the Child ballad I first heard on "Joan Baez in Concert Part One" back when I was in college and which I have loved ever since. I had never heard of the artist, Myrkur, but thanks to the internet I soon took a crash course in her music. Myrkur is the nom de disque for a Danish woman Amalie Bruun who has had a lengthy music career that I somehow missed. She made a pair of delightful jangle pop albums with Brian Harding under the name Ex-Cops. I bought both of them and find them very engaging. She also made several albums as Myrkur which are generally labeled black metal. I have the third one, "Mareridt" which was released in 2017. I know very little about black metal, I have only heard enough to know that it is not my jam. To me "Mareridt" sounds goth, rather than metal which I consider a good thing. In any case I dig the record quite a bit and the folky ballad "De Tre Piker" and the string-driven instrumental "Kætteren" clearly foreshadow this great album of mostly traditional Scandinavian music, which has become one of my favorite folk albums of all time. It is dark and moody like "Mareridt" but it is also ethereal and graceful like dream pop. It opens with "Ella" which is Bruun's own composition written in a folk style. Its Danish lyrics abound in pagan imagery poetically describing the birth and development of a witchlike woman. It is a majestic and stirring song that I find moving even when I don't understand the words. Like most of the album it is string driven with a pulsing almost tribal drumbeat that evokes primitive music. Bruun's evocative vocal is mesmerizing and the song absolutely slays me. A great track. "Fager som in Ros" is a Swedish folksong that means "Beautiful as a Rose." It is a short and sweet tale of seduction in which the young woman takes the initiative. It sounds more like a conventional folksong with its repetitive structure bolstered by a rich string sound and more stirring percussion. Bruun's wordless crooning at the end heightens the pagan feel of the song. "Leaves of Yggdrasil" is Myrkur's own composition with English lyrics. It is a gorgeous piano driven song with highly romantic lyrics tinged with paganism and full of poetic imagery. It is arguably her most successful effort at creating a modern folk song and it is one of my favorite tracks. "Ramund" is an old Danish folk saga that dates back at least to the 17th Century. Myrkur delivers a greatly abridged version that recounts the bloody exploits of the title character. The song has an appropriately somber and heavy arrangement with more tribal drumming and droning strings pushing it. "Tor i Helheim" is Myrkur's abridged adaptation of an epic poem by the 19th Century Danish poet Adam Oehlenschläger based on Norse mythology. It recounts the encounter between the gods Thor and Loki with Hel, a witchlike woman who rules the underworld eternally punishing dead cowards. It begins with some a cappella yelping from Bruun that evokes the otherworldly environment described by the lyrics. The music is melancholy and hypnotic, the perfect accompaniment for a dark journey. Side one concludes with "Svea" which has no actual lyrics but rather features Myrkur wordlessly crooning. The song is driven by the haunting strains of the viola of Stefan Brisland Ferner of the Swedish band Garmarna who introduced me to Swedish folk music many years ago. It is easy to imagine it as the soundtrack to some Viking ritual. Side two begins with "Harpens Kraft" which translates as "Power of the Harp." It is another old Danish folksong about Villemand and his future bride. She fears crossing the river with him to their wedding because the river claimed her two sisters when they tried to cross it to go to their weddings. Myrkur has truncated the song omitting the concluding section where Villemand does indeed lose his bride to the river and discovers a troll has taken her and her sisters. He slays the troll and wins back his bride. "Gammelkäring" translates as "The Old Lady" and it is a short song about an old woman who makes fine wool. It sounds almost like a silly children's song although Bruun delivers it with such seriousness that until I saw a translation of the lyrics I had no idea it was so innocuous. "House Carpenter" is of course the old English ballad collected by Francis Child that is known by many titles including "The Daemon Lover." There are numerous recorded versions of the song, but as I mentioned above, I know it from Joan Baez's recording and since Myrkur thanks Baez in her liner notes I assume that is how she knows it as well. It is about the wife of a carpenter who is seduced away from her family by the ghost of her former lover who leads her to her doom. The percussion drives the song at a brisk pace and the moaning strings enhance Bruun's superbly expressive vocal. I love Joanie's version but darkness was never her thing and Bruun eats it for breakfast. For me this is the definitive version of the song. It gave me chills when I first heard it and it still does after many listens. "Reiar" is an old Norwegian folksong that Myrkur translated into Danish. The title character is a drunk who has no luck with the ladies but who wins a bride by giving her a silver cup. The lyrics are humorous and a bit crude but Bruun solemnly performs them as though she were embarking on a journey to Valhalla. "Gudernes Vilje" means "The Will of the Gods" and was written by Myrkur. The song evokes the experience of being pregnant in vaguely pagan terms. Bruun herself was pregnant while making the album and obviously it was something very much on her mind. The lyrics clearly were resonating with her and she delivers the song with tremendous feeling. It is another song that gives me chills. The album concludes with the lovely piano driven "Vinter" which features wordless vocalizing from Bruun evoking the sensation of a winter soundscape. It sounds more new age than folk to me but I'm not complaining. It does give the album a delicate and enchanting finish. I consider this album to be a flawless masterpiece. Although it is generally not explicitly pagan and the closest it comes to witchcraft are the runes on the cover art, it does subtly evoke that culture and spirit. Since I rarely can understand the words I am mostly responding to the sound of the vocals and the music itself which is consistently dark and melancholy, even funereal at times. I have no interest in paganism, but the spiritual and mystical quality of Bruun's vision impresses me. She almost makes me want to become a warlock. Even if you have no affinity for this stuff, I think Bruun's sincerity and commitment will impress you. She has a great passion for this style of music and she has triumphantly succeeded in breathing life and vitality into old folk songs. This music is timeless and I suspect it will still sound wonderful 100 years from now. I enjoy folk music more than the average person, but this transcends the genre. You needn't have any appreciation for folk music to enjoy this album. It may very well be the most beautiful album that I own and you definitely need to have it. Recommended to fans of Sandy Denny and Loreena McKennitt.
