Frode Haltli: Avant Folk
Richard Gehr on December 19, 2018
“Neid,” the 13-minute climax to accordionist Frode Haltli’s wonderful Avant Folk, will take you on a wild tour through the sort of Scandinavian roots music, contemporary classical tropes and improvised jazz-or-whatever-ism in which the terrific Hubro label specializes. As comfortable as a Saturday-night barn dance, but also ambitiously cosmic, thanks to guitarist Juhani Silvola’s ghostly twang and Haltli’s world-building solo, “Neid” caps an album of both intense localism and global reach. The generic title isn’t a joke, and neither is Haltli’s ambition.
