Germany - Saxony & Lower Saxony

 Our first stop in the state of Saxony is in the city of Dresden.  Here is a view of the inside of Dresden railway station which I took during my 1987 visit of East Germany.

Dresden of course was subjected to the allied carpet bombing at the end of World War II and much of the historic centre was destroyed (not to mention 100's of thousands of people).  Although much of it has been rebuilt since, in 1987 the destruction was still visible.  One of my most vivid memories is of an international group of about 20 of us going to a cellar bar, the top floors of which were just a pile of rubble.  As beer in the old GDR was classed as basic food, and therefore subsidised, it was dirt cheap, about 50 East Pfennigs for half a litre.  At that price about half the group decided to buy a round for everybody at the same time and about 200 beers turned up on our table.  It turned into quite a jolly night...

I'm sure Dresden has changed somewhat since then as is also evidenced by the international flavour of music emanating from the city.  Arabic jazz band Masaa are based here and includes musicians from Germany Lebanon and Israel.  Here's a song from their 2020 album Irade called Fadai:

Next stop is the city of Leipzig, which I also visited back in 1987.  I haven't been since, but at the time it certainly hadn't been as sympathetically restored as Dresden, with many socialist style functional buildings.  This is a display window of a shoe shop from back then.  The caption reads: "Men must go dancing".

Leipzig was the home of one of East Germany's first and best known folk bands called Folkländer.  Established by some students in 1976 they went through various personnel and name changes including Folkländers Bierfiedler and finally just Bierfiedler until they finally disbanded in 2008.  The original name was a pun on Vogtländer, because 2 of the original members were from the Vogtland, a historical region covering parts of Bavaria, Thuringia and Saxony.  Some of their songs are sung in the Vogtland dialect.  Initially they sang inoffensive songs from the romantic era, but later increasingly used more political material, which could have been interpreted as Socialist in the real sense or as criticism of the real conditions in the GDR.  It got them into trouble as their folk opera Die Boten des Todes (The Messengers of Death) was banned in 1982.  In 2018 a compilation album of some of their songs was published under the title Wenn man fragt, wer hat's getan... (When one asks, who did it...).  This is a song from the album called Der Desserteur (The Deserter):

Moving on to the university city of Göttingen in Lower Saxony, where musical comedy duo Die Feisten hail from.  They sing own compositions or rip-offs of popular songs with humoristic lyrics.  Here is a popular blues song of theirs called Nussschuesselblues (nut bowl blues), which describes the perils of eating the complimentary bar nuts offered in a pub:

Finally we move on to East Frisia in the far northwest of Germany.  The East Frisians are the butt of jokes in Germany, much like the Irish in England or the Belgians in the Netherlands and France.  East Frisia has its own dialect of Low German, which is undecipherable to other Germans and has more in common with the Scandinavian languages and Dutch.  Folk band Malbrook started originally from a one album project of the same name by Emden native Wolfgang Meyering  in 2004, but their success encouraged them to carry on as a touring band, which includes violinist Vivien Zeller (of Trad Töchter) and harpist Merit Zloch (of Harfenduo Zirla), both of whom we have already met in Berlin.  Malbrook's music is a mixture of northern German and Scandinavian folk.  Their name in East Frisian translates as Mad Trousers and is a term to describe a person dancing like mad.  Here is a song from their original album called Winterleed (Winter song), in line with the the weather outside my window today:

That's it from the 2 Saxonies, next up the cities of Bremen and Hamburg, which might feature some music by myself even...  Until then you can follow my virtual ramblings on my Tripline map.

Wales - The Middle and Southwest

Before leaving North Wales, I realise we should have stopped in Wrexham, where 2 of the members of The Trials of Cato come from, the third being from Yorkshire.  The band actually formed in Beirut, where they were teaching English and there is a bit of a Middle Eastern flavour to their folk.  They have been dubbed the Sex Pistols of folk and their 2018 debut album Hide and Hair has caused quite a stir winning the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for best of album.  Here's the opening track of this album, called Diffyrwch:

Brother and sister Roy and Linda Griffiths and their neighbour John Gittins from the village of Meifod in Mid-Wales formed the Welsh language folk group Plethyn, which was most active between 1978 and 1995.  They specialise in close harmony singing of the plygain tradition, which is based on a traditional Welsh Christmas service.  The name of the group means braid or bond.  This is the title song from their 1994 album Seidir Ddoe (yesterday's cider):

Based in Llanybydder near Lampeter in southwest Wales are Celtic folk group Ffynnon.  They have a contemporary take on traditional material with some Jazzy influences at times.  This is a song from their 2006 album Celtic Music fom Wales called Beth yw'r Haf:

From the Clettwr Valley in the Ceredigion region of West Wales hails Owen Shiers who started a project to reclaim some of the traditional music of his area and recording some of it under the name Cynefin.  They are some beautifully crafted Welsh language songs.  The debut album was launched this year called Dilyn Afon, Follow the River.   Here's a song from this album called Y Fwyalchen Ddu Bigfelen (The Yellow-Beaked Blackbird):

Now for something a bit different again with some Indie Rock from Carmathen in the shape of young, all-female trio Adwaith (Reaction).  They only launched in 2015 by Hollie Singer and Gwenllian Anthony, who have been friends since they were 3 years old, and who are joined by drummer Heledd Owen.  They are proudly Welsh and proudly feminist with all their lyrics in Welsh.  In their short career they have already been awarded with the Welsh Music Prize last November.  Here's a song from their only album to date, Melyn, recorded in 2018.  The song is called Fel i Fod (not sure what it means...):

Welsh harpist Catrin Finch from Llan-non apparently was the official harpist to the Prince of Wales from 2000-2004.  I didn't know anybody needed an official harpist, but there you go.  If anybody would like to apply to become my official harpist, please comment below... Some of her most exciting work has been when she collaborated with other world musicians such as Senegalese kora player Seckou Keita and Colombian dance band Cimarrón.  First up from her 2009 live album with Cimarrón, Yn Byw.  The song is called Quitapesares.  Have you ever heard the harp played like that?  And the dance steps towards the end are something else!

Next up the opening track from her 2018 album Soar with Seckou Keita called Clarach:

That's it for today from Wales.  We'll conclude our short tour of Wales next time in the southeast of the country.  As usual you can follow my virtual exploits on my tripline map.