Garmarna

The music and words of Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th century abbess who was possibly one of the first female composers, has been hijacked by the New Age movement in recent years. And as such, it's become associated with the kind of cheap, faux-spirituality that sees incense and aromatic oils packaged with CDs.

However,, it seems that someone is willing to drag the music back. Swedish band Garmarna, whose work has adventurously mixed the traditional and modern, will be releasing an album of von Bingen's work in 2001. And it makes no compromise to any New Age sensibilities. For example "Euchari" is dark dancefloor material with an eerie throb, while "Frondens Virga" has a 3 a.m. ambience, something to play as the night sky turns a deep blue.

The project has been primarily the work of singer Emma Hardelin and string player Stefan Brisland-Ferner, although it has heavily involved the entire band.

"Originally it was supposed to be very low-key, but it's grown into a full-blown production."

We were ask by a local presenter in Sweden if we were interested in doing a tour of Bingen's stuff," explained Brisland-Ferner. "We weren't familiar with it, but it sounded like a wild idea, like nothing we would have thought of ourselves."

After listening to the music, which, in the early medieval style, was monophonic, "we found a lot in the melodies," and began working on material for the tour, which was well-enough received to prompt ideas of a record.

While Garmarna's previous records, especially 1999's Vengeance, had a thick, shadowy sound, this is much lighter - and over the course of recording "everything has changed," explained Brisland-Ferner. "It had to, really. All the arrangements, what we play, how we play it, the production has changed completely from two years ago."

One thing it's not is the folk music the band had explored before, and that has meant taking more time over everything.

"The big difference is that we can learn the folk tunes really quickly, and when we find the tune, we can just start to play it," observed Hardelin. "But with this it takes about two weeks to be able to sing one tune."

"I've been doing music to the material, and we've arranged it," continued Brisland-Ferner. "Then Emma comes with what she's learned, and how she wants to do it, and we have to readjust and rearrange it. We're not doing it strictly off the books."

The lighter sound the band has achieved is in part deliberate, but also comes from working with a new producer, who's helped expand their sound. And it's proved to be an excellent learning experience for them, one which will doubtless have an influence on them in the future.

"This feels like a project, a way for us to find new tools to do things in the future," admitted Hardelin. "Originally it was supposed to be very low-key, but it's grown into a full-blown production. But we will be returning to folk music after this."