Earlier this year, celebrated Swedish fiddler Lena Jonsson, also of The Goodbye Girls, teamed up with Californian fiddler Brittany Haas, member of Haas Kowert Tice and Crooked Still who also recently performed on David Rawlings Machine’s latest tour, to release a self-titled all-instrumental album. The duo just wrapped a tour of the Northeast to support their record, including a stop at last week’s Brooklyn Bluegrass Bash.
Amongst a slew of traditional and Scandinavian-influenced all-fiddle tunes with impressive instrumentation, the feeling of longing in a waltz off of the record called “Novembervals” has stayed with me for a couple weeks now. Here’s what Haas & Jonsson said about the song in the album’s liner notes.
In November 2014, we were on tour in Sweden with the duo Rydvall/Mjelva and during the two weeks we spent there we got exactly two minutes of sunshine. It was the greyest November in Swedish history since they started measuring. This waltz was inspired by that.
Enjoy this hopeful number, our Song of the Week, just below.
SIDENOTE: If you like this one, also check out “Fosclachtha” – one of my all-time favorite instrumentals off of CrissCross, Haas’ 2012 album with Princeton professor Dan Trueman.
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