V€SEN with Darol Anger & Mike Marshall
Freight and Salvage Coffee Shop - Berkeley, CA February 26, 2010
Audience recording made with a ZOOM H2 edited on an iMac using Sound
Studio to seperate tracks, raise overall volume and compress audience applause
levels.
First set: (disc 1)
The Duo (Darol & Mike)
1- ?
2- ?
3- ?
4- ? > Borealis
VŠsen (Olov Johansson, Roger Tallroth and Mikael Marin)
5- VŠsen intro
6- Botanisten (The Botanist)
7- VŠsen Street
8- Eklunda Polska nr 3
9- Egypt
10- ?
Second set: (disc 2)
VŠsen, Darol & Mike
1- Freight announcements
2- Second set intro
3- Loke's Troubles
4- Fallandepolskan (The Falling Polska)
5- Penknife Killer
6- Absolute Swedish
7- Johsefins Dopvals (Johsefin's Waltz)
8- ?
9- ?
encore:
10- Red Prairie Dawn
http://www.darolanger.com/
http://www.mikemarshall.net/
http://www.vasen.se/
Wild invention reigns supreme whenever pioneering fiddle maestro Darol Anger
and mandolin wizard Mike Marshall get together. On albums like their recent The
Duo Live: At Home and On the Range (Compass), and even more so on stage,
their duo playing, brimming with passion, prodigious technique, and goofy humor,
is not to be missed. Darol has spent the last 25 years or so reinventing the
American string ensemble to incorporate his explorations into American
traditional, bluegrass, jazz, and world musics in groups he helped found, such as
the Turtle Island String Quartet, the David Grisman Quintet, and his Republic of
Strings ensemble. Acoustic string virtuoso, Mike is the leading proponent of an
ebullient and fascinating brand of folk-jazz-classical music that explores territory
stretching from Brazil through Appalachia to Europe and Africa, by way of
Manhattan and the Florida swamps. He first gained acclaim for his
groundbreaking "newgrass" work with David Grisman, and more recently founded
the Modern Mandolin Quartet and the Brazilian ensemble, Choro Famoso.
Together, Darol and Mike have created amazing music in groups like the avant
garde bluegrass quintet, Psychograss, and the folk-jazz fusion group, Montreux.
The Swedish word VŠsen has three meaningsÑessence, spirit, and hullabalooÑ
making it the perfect name for a band that is part Nordic tradition and part
whirling dervish. To its roots in the musical traditions of Uppland, Sweden, VŠsen
brings playfulness and vitality, transforming venerable polskas and marches into
modern groove masterpieces, yet retaining the consummate playing skills and
ageless appeal of the best traditional music.VŠsen's unique sound showcases
the playing of Olov Johansson, a virtuoso of the nykelharpa, a bowed, 16-string
instrument related to both the hurdy-gurdy and the fiddle, along with violist Mikael
Marin and guitarist Roger Tallroth, in a ensemble that swings through dense,
sinuous arrangements with amazing intensity and deft interplay, on stage and on
albums like their recent VŠsen Street. Public radio's All Things Considered said
of the group, "The absurdly broad term 'world music' is rendered useless in the
face of these musicians who play with such passion and glee that everything on
the globe seems to disappear except their hometown fires. This is 'local music' in
the best sense of the wordÑbelievable, human-scaled, and fluent in the
international language of musical interplay." As one member of VŠsen put it more
succinctly: "We can promise you one thing. You never know quite what's going to
happen."