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DOGGERLAND - No Sadness Of Farewell

DOGGERLAND - No Sadness Of Farewell
Gammalthea SEWJN38

Musically there is nothing to fault No Sadness Of Farewell by this very accomplished cultural musical marriage between Britain and Scandinavia. For the purposes of the recording, the duo, Richard Burgess and Anders Ådin, has gathered together several guest musicians who regale under the name of Doggerland. The content of the CD is a mixture of traditional music, poems set to music, and Scandinavian material, which we are led to believe represent travelling away from home and the subsequent broken heart that this might affect. Individually, these songs and tunes make very pleasant listening, but as a composite, and in view of the stated aim, I am not entirely convinced that some of the songs are appropriate.

However, that said, the CD exudes musical talent. Kevin Henderson, best known from his playing with The Boys Of The Lough, lends considerable musical gravitas with his spirited and talented fiddle playing. He is joined by the equally satisfying and brilliantly gifted Jenny Gustafsson on fiddle, Mats Eden on viola d’amore and Fredrik Bengtsson on double bass, mandola, mandolin and fiddle.

The CD is made up of 11 tracks from a range of sources both traditional and contemporary. The Hush by Richard Burgess is quite superb in its simplicity and beauty, as Richard says: The woods in Norway “resound at night to the strange whirr of the nightjar. When it stops, the silence is remarkable.” The single verse at the end of the track is superlative and really adds to the atmospheric of the piece. Ringverven is a poem by seaman and local historian Alfred Jensen which has been very successfully set to music by Richard Burgess. The production of this track is extremely evocative, dealing with the demise of a shipyard in Fredrikstad in south-eastern Norway, and so reminiscent of elements of our own British historical past.

This work is faultless in its performance and production, a great listen that continues to impress with every time it’s played.

www.doggerland.com

John Oke Bartlett


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This album was reviewed in Issue 120 of The Living Tradition magazine.