Track Listing

1. Tass On Nainen
2. Min Skog
3. Vargtimmen
4. Gorrlaus
5. Skrautval
6. Pornopolka
7. Raven
8. Saglaten
9. Tuuli
10. Tappmarschen
11. Tina Vieri

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #248932 in Music
• Released on: 1999-10-01
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

The Gods of Swedish Music
Gods? Yes, Gods. Hallbus Mattson, Bjorn Tollin, and Anders Stake are the music gods of Sweden. On Tra they are joined by female singers Sanna Kurki-Suonio and Tellu Paulasto. The Swedes do things different, just look at the Saab. And Hedningarna does folk music like no one does folk music. Hedningarna is Swedish for "The Heathens," standing for the group's radical reinterpretation of Scandinavian folk music. They play traditional instruments - lutes, fiddles, mandoras, flutes, accordions. Except, they are all plugged into amplifiers. The result is . . . well . . .

It begins slowly, like a far off storm approaching, a distant droning. Female voices begin, chanting in a language unknown to you. Slowly at first, very building... in tempo, in volume. A wail joins them. It is short . . . did you hear it? . . . yes, there it is again. The chant continues, faster, stronger. Then, suddenly horns, slightly unworldly, strange strings, winds, primal drums . . . bizarre noises carry a tune. The chant disappears to be replaced by this strange music at once haunting, chilling, yet strangely exhilarating. The sounds begin to swirl like a dervish, swirling upward, outward. More and more frenzied yet under control, tight, filled with tension, brimming with power. The chant returns, even stronger now it joins up with the music. Voices, horns, wailing winds . . . is it anger? Is it joy? You don't know, but it is strong, whatever it is is intense and beautiful. You begin to accept and revel in it, let it begin to life you with it . . . then suddenly - gone! All gone, only a brief echo remains of all the energy that once was there.

. . . and that is just the first song.

I could go into such depth on every one of their songs, for their songs have that much depth, that much energy.

How to describe Hedningarna's Tra in a nutshell? Well, try to imagine playing the songbook of Arlo Guthrie or the Irish Rovers with the intensity of Metallica or the Sex Pistols. Can't imagine that? Can't blame you. You have to experience it.

Now, let me make it totally clear - all of the intensity and volume that Hedningarna brings to their music does not in any way detract from the folk purity of their music. It's still folk music tried and true, its just folk elevated to a heretofore unimagined level. The intensity comes from the lyrics deep rooted in basic human emotions of love, freedom, need, and defiance. For example, the loudest and fiercest song on the album is a man singing that he will not cut down his trees simply because the rich man next door objects to them. All of the songs are pure emotion, human desire, strength, and frailty at its most pure and primordial.

The rest of the album . . . Yes. That first song described above was Tass on nainen (Here's a Woman). Min Skog (My Grove - the one about the trees) crashes instantly into incessant drums giving away exhausted to fierce fiddle then electric guitar then to defiant chanted vocals. Then comes Vargtimmen (Hour of the Wolf) with catchy percussion, high energy melody and impassioned vocals:

It is in the heart itself
Lies live, and deceit
How can I speak thereof
wisely, with gentleness?

Gorrlaus (The Steed) shows a softer more melodic side to Hedningarna, while still being a high energy riding song.

Relent, stallion with frothing mane calm, even out your pace

Skrautval is an instrumental driven by dual fiddles and hurdy-gurdy. Almost a jig, but much grander in sweep. Pornopolka (Porno Polka - yes, really) is a very fast and energetic reel that tells the tale of a woman casting a spell to cause a man to fall in love with her.

Raven is an amazing song. Beginning with what I can only describe as breathing as singing, the song offers up a didgeridoo style instrument, Jew's harp, percussion and a chanted vocal deeper than Barry White. The decided gothic tones mingle with grating string bass and other decidedly other worldly music
SaglaTen (Say What You Like) is my favorite on the album. It displays the energy of youth thumbing its nose at their uptight elders.

Old crones have knapsacks of dung and disapproving airs
A merry lass and a whipper-smapper lad are of the same kind

Yet, the pure passion of Sanna's vocals create something so primal and earnest it is sheer beauty. The final chorus climbs to an intensity of emotion so high the group put in a five second gap of silence after the song so you can catch your breath.

In Tuuli (Wind) Sami singer Wimme joins the group to joik an homage to the fierce winds of the north. The women sing a chorus of supplication to the king and queen of the winds.

Rise wind to a gale
Gusts growing to a tempest
Rage on through the years

Tappmarschen (Sorrow is a Lonely Bird) is a traditional song of loss of a loved one with fiddles, string bass and a solo female vocal. We are now decrescendoing.

Finally (whew) Tina Vieri (Tin Rolling) lets us down easy with a beautiful ballad that begins with simply the sound of a babbling brook. The tin in the title though are the nails that sealed the coffin of the singer's mother and the song, though beautiful is the wrenching cries of a woman mourning her dead mother (traditional folk music sure is dark folks). Still, the final two minutes of the song is haunting chorus fading into the distance closed out by the babbling brook again that flows for a full 40 seconds before fading into silence leaving you to contemplate the enormity of what you have just experienced.

Tra is a masterpiece. More than anything I wish there was more music like this. Pure unabashed emotion and a willingness to express all of human feeling in song. Most other music pails in comparison.

Hedningarna at their finest!!!
DJProFusion really nailed it with his excellent review. I heard Hedningarna first on a radio show in 1992 or 1993, and scribbled the name down (incorrectly spelling the name) intending to hunt them out. I ended up choosing to buy "Oi Dai" by Varttina, also featured on the show, and that along with earlier acquisition "Gula Gula" by Mari Boine marked the beginning of my Scandinavian folk-music journey. I was already therefore feeling energised and intrigued when "Tra" came out in 1994, and that was like being grabbed by the feet and whirled around in arcs through the air. I was hooked from the opening seconds of Tass On Nainen, and it along with Min Skog are the standout tracks for me on a blistering album that to my thinking marks their creative highpoint as a band.

Tra has drive, vitality, drama and power and is folk music freed of cobwebs, presented in an electrified environment, succeeding in being both primal and of the here and now. My copy has the liner notes in Swedish and Finnish, languages which I have yet to learn, so DJProFusion's notes give me a window of insight on the subject-matter in the songs. All these years I've been this illiterate music-lover holding on for dear life and for the exhiliarating ride, as if this album were some mythical flying beast careening through the wild northern landscapes, and that remains a perfectly fine way to experience Tra.

With Hedningarna, Garmarna, Mari Boine, and Varttina leading the way I became hooked upon the new wave of Scandinavian folk music, and wondered why such vitality, punk attitude, innovation and pagan wildness was largely absent from the comparatively sleepy British folk scene of the day. Tra was and is a work of brilliance, I wonder if it stands out today to a new generation as much as it did in 1994 to me? I doubt it in part because context changes and because younger bands will have taken notes from this inspirational album and applied them to their own work, but I think it well deserves to be celebrated as a landmark album of the genre.