The music of Väsen is foundational to the members of Hawktail. They avidly followed (and played) it as teenagers, and then as they moved through their music education and early professional careers. Encountering these young musicians at festivals, Väsen quickly recognized and appreciated the talents and clever musical inventiveness of Hawktail. Aspirations to collaborate rarely advance beyond the idea stage: “let’s try to do something together sometime!”

But in this instance an application by Väsen to the Swedish Arts Council resulted in funding for two collaborative tours (one each in Sweden and the U.S.), which laid the groundwork for yet more touring and a week of recording in Sweden. Let’s hope it’s just the beginning of a long and fruitful musical relationship.

This set, honed by those first tours, combines original tunes already established in each of the band’s repertoires (but newly arranged for this 5-piece ensemble), with freshly composed music for the collaboration. Usually the tune is a polska, that infinitely variable 3-beat rhythm that permeates Swedish traditional music, and universally just gets under your skin. In the hands of these five enormously talented acoustic musicians, it’s like mining for joy.

-Robert Simonds