John L Walters 

Griselda Sanderson: Harpaphonics

Pleasingly diverse - Sanderson turns the nyckelharpa's limitations to her advantage, says John L Walters
  
  


World music, despite its potential for confusion, continues to embrace people of every stripe. Griselda Sanderson teaches contemporary music performance at Dartington, the time-honoured hotbed of the avant garde. But she has also played early classical music and Celtic folk in a variety of bands - notably Waulk Elektrik, which fused roots and rave. This album marks another direction for Dr Sanderson, who already describes herself as "bi-musical". In 2005 she acquired a nyckelharpa, the Swedish string instrument that looks like a Heath Robinson viol. It has four playing strings (one a drone), 12 sympathetic strings and a clattery cluster of 37 keys that make it look like a hurdy-gurdy. Yet Harpaphonics is neither overly esoteric nor overcomplicated: the album is pleasingly diverse, encompassing Spring Storm's polka rhythms, the Afro-dub of Irime (Ice Warrior) and the African-Scottish snap of The Charmer. Sanderson turns the nyckelharpa's limitations to her advantage, making something best described as "world music".

 

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