Till Skogen

Climate change, pandemics, wars… there’s an urgent need to raise people’s spirits, so the joy and optimism of Kolonien’s Till Skogen is very welcome. It’s a wonderfully uplifting album, from the opening track ‘Time Will Tell’ (a determinedly upbeat anthem, despite the climate emergency theme) to the closing ‘Unlearning’. As invigorating as a cold, sunny, Swedish morning, Kolonien have the freshness of The Cardigans’ early albums while at the same time sounding something like a Nordic Fleet Foxes.

Taking their name from a Swedish term for community gardening, Kolonien is rooted in Scandinavian traditional folk music and the Swedish Green movement. It’s a family affair – guitarist brothers Erik and Arvid Rask and their cousin Anna Möller (violin, viola d’amore and Hardanger fiddle), plus percussionist and childhood friend Mischa Grind. For the most part, the successive tracks hurtle along, driven by Grind’s ever-sympathetic and imaginative percussion accompaniment, with an atmospheric interlude – ‘Nattsudd’ – featuring Möller’s Hardanger fiddle. This is a strikingly well-constructed album, the opening and closing tracks are sung in English, the rest mainly in Swedish, with the vocals and instrumentation blending beautifully.