Alvaleken by Mats Edén

Mats Edén - one of the most influential musicians in Scandinavian traditional music since the 70ties - presents a selection of 21 tunes from the several hundred tunes he has composed in traditional styles. His work is a rare example of a successful combination of recirculation and innovation: on the one hand many motifs sounds familiar to tunes you have heard, but then frequently in new and fresh contexts that makes you think «this is of course traditional» even if you previously never have heard it this way!
Mats made the recording with a small Zoom recorder in his home in Dalby, Sweden, and thus lets the listener be a fly on the wall in his studio.
Tellef Kvifte produced, edited and mastered the recordings on distance from his studio in Oslo; thus, a typical covid production! The album is accompanied by a pdf booklet with comments for each tune, as well as written music for the whole album.
Mats is one of the very few musicians that stylistically is equally at home in Sweden and Norway. Both as a performer and as a composer, he roams freely across the border between the two countries, as well as across the stylistic borders between districts in the two countries.
Though his work in Groupa and countless other contexts, Mats is one of the key figures in the development of the contemporary sound of traditional musics in Scandinavia, and has contributed on a large number of records. On the Taragot label, you’ll find him already on Egeland/Edén/Marin vol 1, from 2019, and in duo with Guro Kvifte Nesheim on the album Den kaldsteikte fra 2020.

Mats Edén is a legendary fiddler, composer, teacher, rooted in the traditions of Värmland, Sweden. He is one of the most prominent musicians in the development of Swedish traditional music since the 70ties.