Kirsten Bråten Berg
Kirsten Braten Berg and three other musicians are sitting backstage, each preparing for a solo performance in a Norwegian music festival, and each one trying to warm up before going on stage. Two are Norwegian, two are West African; and they're all in one room. At some point, they begin to notice that their apparently unrelated traditions are actually sounding quite beautiful together. They hear something strangely familiar in the music of an unfamiliar tradition; something that suggests that even countries which are thousands of miles apart can be musical neighbors. The result of that chance meeting in 1996 is a remarkable recording called From Senegal To Setesdal. A quietly surprising collection of folk songs and lullabies, this recording blends two traditions that probably shouldn't sound so great together - except that they do. And that is a tribute to the almost magical performances from a quartet led by the gifted Norwegian singer Kirsten Braten Berg, who lives in the Norwegian valley called Setesdal. Her collaborators include Bjorgulv Straume, also from Setesdal, who builds and plays the jaw harp. The talented Senegalese musician Solo Cissokho plays the traditional West African harp, or kora; and the ensemble is rounded out by Kouame Sereba, a percussionist and vocalist from Ivory Coast who moved to Norway in 1983. This unlikely quartet is able to start a song in one language and end up in another, leaving you to wonder when - or even if - the song moved from one country to the other. On Bråten Berg's recording, old Norse epics and lullabies blend imperceptibly with age-old songs from the rich Wolof and Manding traditions of West Africa. The delicate rhythms of Cissokho's kora seem as at home backing up a herding song from Norway as they are in the traditional works. And two unusual mouth percussion instruments lend an indefinable, almost otherwordly sound: The munnharpe is the Norwegian form of the familiar jaw harp (also known as jew's harp or mouth harp); the African do-do is a mouth bow. It looks a bit like the result of an archery bow mating with a meat thermometer. (Kids, don't try this at home.) The point is, it's a fairly unusual instrument, traditionally used in the Ivory Coast to contact the spirit world, and while it has a very different sound, it complements the Norwegian mouth harp quite nicely. The voice of course is an international instrument, and since all four members of the ensemble sing, that is a thread woven throughout the recording. What you won't hear are the drum machines and digital sequencers that are part of so many cross-cultural or World Music recordings. From Senegal to Setesdal makes its point simply, but beautifully. It doesn't command you to dance, but it certainly invites you to at times. You might say it speaks softly, but carries a big stick. That big stick would be the djembe, the powerful tree-trunk drum of West Africa. Not only a rhythmic instrument, Sereba's djembe also provides a surprisingly effective bass part to several of the album's songs. Kirsten Bråten Berg has been a leading figure in the revival of Nordic folksong since she moved to Setesdal in the early 1970s. Norway is a country of mountains and valleys, and many of those valleys have developed distinctive musical traditions; Setesdal has long been one of the richest of them. And in Setesdal, the richest, most distinctive voice belongs to Bråten Berg. She has made numerous recordings of traditional folksong, but has also appeared in collaborations with jazz bassist Arild Andersen, Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, contemporary composer Jan Erik Pettersen, and some of the bright lights on Norway's bustling avant-folk scene. Whether singing over an Ale M=F8ller synthesizer drone or performing a traditional tune with the hot young fiddler Annbj=F8rg Lien, Kirsten Bråten Berg's voice is unmistakable. Earthy, almost velvety. And she's multitalented too -- Bråten Berg is a fine performer on the munnharpe, and an accomplished silversmith as well. Solo Cissokho is from an equally rich musical region. He is a griot, one of the wandering minstrels who have been the keepers of the musical, historical, even genealogical traditions of West Africa for centuries. He's had a notable solo career; and has been a tireless ambassador for the music of Senegal, Gambia, and the neighboring regions of West Africa. In fact, one of the most striking things about the CD From Senegal To Setesdal is how well the songs and lullabies of his tradition fit with the traditional melodies from Norway. Bjorgulv Straume and Kouame Sereba are masters of their respective mouth harps. Straume is considered a master builder as well as one of Norway's best munnharpe players - this in a country where the jaw harp has experienced a major revival. Sereba learned the do-do secretly, by hiding nearby and listening while the instrument was used in ceremonies by the village elders. The story goes that even his own mother doesn't know how he came to master the instrument. These mouth harps are so rich in overtones that they can have a weird, almost electronic sound. They certainly add to the texture of the recording, and hearing the two together suggests that these two musical traditions, though separated by geography, may have a connection = somewhere in history. That suggestion may sound farfetched, until you hear about the astounding discovery of an 8000-year old do-do in Sweden! Perhaps Bråten Berg's ensemble is not breaking new ground after all, but digging up old tangled roots that lead off in startling directions. Six Degrees likes to say that everything is closer than you think. (It's on the inside of all the CDs -- you could look it up.) With the album From Senegal To Setesdal, Kirsten Bråten Berg's ensemble quietly but convincingly shows that the distance between subtropical Africa and the snowy North isn't so great after all.