Krauka with Kari Tauring and Huldre
The second "Thorsday" in October brings a Nordic music evening to The Cedar. From Denmark, Krauka takes you on a journey to the Viking Age -- an era when life was all about battles, pillaging and drinking. Their music is played on instruments reconstructed after archaeological findings, but with modern elements intertwined, creating an intense atmosphere inspired by the sagas and the forces of nature.
They have just released their 4th CD Óðinn, and land their ship at The Cedar as part of a Midwestern US tour. Óðinn is full of legends and myths about elves, dwarfs, tricksters and gods. The group's music starts with strong, poetic male voices, rebec, hand drums, jews harps, bass guitar, lyres and flutes, drawing on Icelandic text sources and medieval song tradition, then layers electronic samples and sound collages. Above all, sun, snow and ocean - the Nordic nature - are the natural inhabitants of this music, which seems to flourish outdoors, where the campfire burns, and the dancing is wild, followed by a dip in the chilly ocean.
"Óðinn is a marvelously unique CD, totally unexpected, something I at first thought would be a kind of New Age tour through a Pleasant Valley Sunday in the frozen North. But no, this is dramatic, progressive, propulsive, dark, and tribal. I haven't heard anything quite like Óðinn. At first, I got images of Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal through a Viking's binoculars, but the compositions shift and change like chameleons, eerie and human simultaneously, shuddery and bracing, happy and chilly, boisterous and arch. ...medieval mind theater crossed with film auteur Steven Berkoff reinventing the past in lucid dreams." -- acousticmusic.com
"One band member is a classically-trained violinist, one a folk musician, another a heavy-metal headbanger and one loves Viking sagas. The ancient Viking poems are the basis for many of Krauka's songs. They're mostly about fighting and drinking; there's one love song. The instruments are as diverse as a 5th century lyre, a whistle made from the leg bone of a sheep, and a bass guitar." -- Dan Gunderson, Minnesota Public Radio
Opening the evening will be Kari Tauring and Huldre -- tonight a trio with Drew Miller and David Stenshoel from Boiled In Lead. Kari sings and tells stories from our deep Scandinavian tap root. Waving her antler feather fan, she conjures ancient spirits that hover and dance around her classically trained voice. The bone beads of her Bronze Age string skirt punctuate rune songs danced to the pols (pulse) of staff and melodic dulcimer.
Author of “The Runes: A Human Journey” (2007), Tauring’s performances draw on 20 years of research and experience. Her EP “Völva Songs” (2008) includes songs in Votic, Old Norse, Norwegian and English -- in performance, her music is both sweet as a lullaby and frightening as a Valkyrie; both intensely emotional and thoroughly researched. She wakes something from deep in our bones, something simultaneously ephemeral and elemental.
“Her shows educate as well as inspire” – David de Young, howwastheshow.com
Krauka's "Release The Ravens" tour is supported by the Performing Arts Fund, a program of Arts Midwest funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional contributions from North Dakota Council on the Arts, General Mills Foundation, and Land O’Lakes Foundation, as well as the Cities of Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo through The Arts Partnership. Thanks to Ingebretsens and Eye of Horus for their support of this evening.
Tickets are on sale now from the Cedar Ticketline (612-338-2674 ext 2), Cedar outlets and online at Ticketweb.
