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biography / portrait

The voice of Agnes Buen Garnas is a fine and beautiful thing; pure, controlled and passionate. The songs are all from Norwegian tradition, medieval tales told on bitter cold nights to help suffer the cold winds, and her voice is the warmth of a fire blazing at midnight. The twist in this recording is the work of Jan Garbarek, whose synthesized sounds carry these tunes beyond Norway into a sort of pan-European dark ages of the future. There is a heavy Balkan sound to these songs, which may or may not have anything to do with historical traditions, but as new music, it really works. Even without the benefit of knowing the stories told in this all-Norwegian-language piece, you still can feel the joy and sorrow of the tales as they unfold. The cross references of garbarek's moody music with Garnas' incredible, formal folk voicing is quite stunning. No recommended cuts, in fact my suggestion is you treat it as a whole piece, played in one set on a dark night somewhere in a cold world. (source: www.rootsworld.com)