Karl Seglem ~ Femstein
Seglem is director
of Norwegian label Norcd, as well as a producer and musician whose career
dates back to the end of the 1980s. On Femstein’s opening track, Blå
Botn, ribald rhythms married to the rasp and claw of Seglem’s goathorn
evoke celebratory images of a harsh rural life lived to the full. Joined by
Kjellemyr’s second, abrasively treated bass and Høgemo’s
hardanger fiddle, the effect is simultaneously medieval and contemporary.
Later, Bål spins goathorn, fiddle and electronics into long skeins of
sound that disappear into past and future. Femstein’s outspokenness
speaks straight from the heart, its very sound conjuring the sense of touching
weathered wood, windstrafed rock, worn leather. That this music works so convincingly
as a fusion of Norwegian folk music and contemporary techniques must be ascribed
both to the group’s sympathy for the material and to Seglem’s
understanding of the potential of loops, samples and modern instruments to
revitalise tradition.
Colin Buttimer
January 2005
Published by Jazzwise magazine