Denmark - Sjælland Part I

 Next we are heading over the bridge to the island of Sjælland or Zealand, which includes the capital city of Copenhagen.  I visited Copenhagen once a looooong time ago and my memory of it is a bit hazy.  We approached the city from the north and visited the Tuborg brewery first at 9 am.  Being this early most people only wanted one of the two beers offered for free at the end of the tour, so I volunteered to finish off everybody else's beers, so they wouldn't go to waste.  The rest of the day in Copenhagen kind of disappeared in a blur for some reason... can't think why.  

Anyway, we start in the small town of Næstved, where part of the folk band Baltic Crossing comes from, namely fiddle player Kristian Bugge, the rest of the band come from Finland and also includes Northumbrian pipe player Andy May, whom we have already met in Newcastle on this blog.  The name of the band derives from the fact that wherever they get together, at least one of them has to cross the Baltic Sea.  They play lively traditional dance tunes from all over Europe.  Here is a fun tune from their 2019 album Carry On Crossing called Oyster Wife's Rant:

Next we are heading to the small town of Gadstrup, 20km southwest of Copenhagen, where Dark Nordic folk singer and composer Nanna Barslev is from.  She employs ancient Nordic instruments and singing techniques to paint an atmospheric soundscape of the north.  Her latest album, released this year, is called Lysbærer (carrier of light) and this is a track from the album called Mod Vrede:

In a similar vein we finally arrive in Copenhagen where Nordic folk musician Mike Schaefer Olsen, better known as Danheim, was born in 1985.  Unlike Nanna Barslev his background is in electronic music, which he incorporates in his Nordic folk sounds with traditional Viking instruments.  Here's a song called Reida from his from his 2020 album Skapanir:

The band Myrkur was initially founded in 2014 by singer and multi-instrumentalist Amalie Bruun as a black metal group in Copenhagen, but on their their third album Folkesange in 2020 changed to a more upbeat folky style.  At the outset the identity of Bruun was kept a secret, but has since been revealed.  She clearly likes to do things differently, playing many of the instruments in her recordings herself, including guitar, bass and nyckelharpa.  Here's the opening track to that album called Ella:

The members of Nordic trio Dreamers' Circus, Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen (Faroe Islands), Ale Carr (Sweden) and Nikolaj Busk (Denmark), met at a jam session at a folk festival in Copenhagen in 2009.  Their music defies genres with influences of Nordic folk, jazz and classical music melding into something of a Nordic Penguin Café Orchestra.  It has been described as New Nordic.  Here's a track from their 2018 album Rooftop Sessions called Kitchen Stories:

Fiddler Rune Tonsgaard Sørensen is also part of the Grammy-nominated Danish String Quartet, who are mostly a classic chamber music quartet, but often delve into traditional Nordic tunes.  The 3 Danish members of the band are joined by Norwegian cellist Fredrik Schøyen Sjölin.  Whilst they all have beards and may or may not be Vikings, they assure their fans they only pillage the coasts of England occasionally.  Here's a tune called Shore by the aforementioned Fredrik Sjölin from their 2017 album Last Leaf:

On this calming note we'll end it for today, exploring more of Copenhagen and Zealand next time.  In the meantime, as usual, you can follow my virtual ramblings on my tripline map.