Fräkmündt - Urbärglieder [Percht - 2010]Fräkmündt are a four piece Swedish project who brew up a heady, atmospheric & slight twisted mix of : alpine Folk, Germanic drinking songs, organic/ nature lined industrial texturing, off-kilter jaunting indie guitar band folk, slight ambient black metal elements, and the odd dwells in more avant tinged atmospheric ambient waters. “Urbärglieder” is the band début full lenght and it appears on the excellent Austrian based Percht/ Ahnstern family of labels (home of Sturmpercht, Allerseelen, Jahrtal, Svarrogh, Sangre Cavallum, ect). The album offers up fifteen songs & sixty seven minutes worth of music, and it’s quite a varied, atmospheric, sombre to quirky ride. Clearly Sturmpercht; the originators of alpine Folk form are a big influence on the bands sound, but Fräkmündt manage to have their only sonic identity and sound too. At times their sound learns towards a quite stern and winter weathered Russian or Baltic feel, which I guess is the bands traditional Swedish influence coming in. The tracks vocals are mainly stern & cold soundingly Germanic in there feel, though there are the odd dips into more female choral type vocals too. Musically the tracks are made from a mixture of: layers of acoustic guitars, accordion, Flute, Violin, Hurdy-Gurdy, various often traditional percussive elements, and the odd hint of psychedelic/ blacked synth texturing and effects in the more odd/ drifting ambient moments. To give you idea of the scope & range of what’s on offer here I go through a few of my favourite/ stand out moments: The jaunting almost rock ‘n’ roll folk jig of “Karfriitigsfüür”. The rising religious female choral vocalizing, accordion ribbed Russian folk, and light folk rock touchers of “Eimelibärg” . The wavering and melting ambience, meets theatrical and creepy male vocals, and unsettling 'walking 'n' door shutting' field recordings of “S'Gschpeischterhuus Vo Stans”. Or the manic warbling accordion & organ waltz of “Soubnnerzog”. Pretty much all of the 15 songs are worthy in their own right, and the album as a whole has quite a rewarding and surprising flow and ebb to it. As with most things put out by the Percht/ Ahnstern family of labels there’s really thought & effort put into the packaging- the standard edition of the album features a fold out Digipak and sixteen page glossy booklet which is made to look a quirky & old book with pictures of turn of the century alpine dwellers, alpine house, and lost of old drawings of leeches!. The ltd edition comes in a hand made wooden box with a sticker, a t-shirt, a glass of Mondmilch, a jigger, stones from mount Pilatus and a small book of old Swiss sagas. So all in all “Fräkmündt” is a consistent and varied debut album which will very much please those looking for atmospheric folk music that mixers together traditional European folk with more quirky and experimental edges and textures. Roger Batty
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