Songs
The Remarkable Return of Old Man Basco (2013)
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- country:Denmark
- label:GO' Danish Folk Music
- type:Band
- gender:male
- artist posted by:Äsping music
Line up
- Ale Carr (Cittern)
- Anders Ringgaard (Accordion & Trombone)
- Andreas Tophøj (Violin)
- Hal Parfitt Murray (Violin)
Links
Basco started out as a safety valve for Hal's almost clinical need to pump out new fiddle tunes, and is still living off it. Since their first performance back in 2003 at the Tnder Festival, Basco has been infusing folk music with piping hotness given any opportunity whatsoever. In 2011, Basco was reborn in a new Danish/Swedish incarnation, and is now ready for phase two of its programme for world domination.
Hal Parfit Murray is Basco's ultra-composer and a real "Do-it-yourselfer." When not teaching fiddle and composition at the academy, composing wicked fiddle tunes or touring the world bringing mighty folk to the hungry masses, he can be found building a studio in an old water tower or designing aeroplanes on his laptop. Before coming to Denmark, Hal grew up in Australia to Scottish/English parents. So it's as natural as breathing for him to mix up traditions from around the world into drops of concentrated musical naughtiness.
As Basco's astonishing untamed wild horse of amazingness, Andreas Tophj will do anything, with or without his violin, on or off stage to get your attention. He'll play faster than a speeding bullet, or higher than tall buildings in a single bound. Or so beautifully that grown men will shed manly tears into their unkempt mountain-beards. A years studies in the US of A have led to Andreas being the American inspiration in Basco. Expect lots of chopping and flaming bluegrass licks as Andreas really makes his fiddle whinny like a Mustang.
Ale Carr is Basco's autistic-genius-funk-trad-riff-machine. He grew up in Swedish forests among the elves and trolls and he learned the mystical, musical secrets of the true Swede from his mother and father when he was still at the teat. He began playing the fiddle at four years of age, and at six he was playing the drums and guitar. Since then he's played piano, double-bass, mandolin, banjo and probably Azerbaijani nose flute before settling on the Cittern as his weapon of choice. You'd think he was a bit weird, but you can't get more funky than Mr Carr.
Anders Ringgaard is Basco's handyman, musical elf and living, sentient smoke machine. He springs lightly and elegantly as a gazelle from accordion to trombone and back again, and fills the air with delicate chords and stomping brass band tutti hits. With a solid grounding in both classical music and jazz, and with a life long interest in traditional music, you can be sure that Anders is going to take you to places you were not expecting to be taken, but are very glad to have seen, not to mention danced in like it was 1999.
Basco's material is nearly all original, stealing shamelessly and frivolously from Scandinavian, English, Irish, Scottish and North American idioms to create a kind of organic, musical, soupy stew - full of vitamins and anti-oxidants. For Basco, the tune is the thing, and all else must spring from it, and take a back seat it's gotta swing
Things said about Basco:
"Basco are so pro it almost hurts [...] It sounds like they've been playing together for a lifetime. It's authentic. And it never gets too much, in fact quite the opposite. Really good" **** - Jydske Vestkysten
"You can't pick a hole in their delivery. These boys know what they're doing. The production is raw and honest you can almost feel the rosin dust from their bows in your nostrils. It gives the music an urgent, driving appeal." - Rootszone magazine
What is one to say? Perfect, supreme... - Lira, (Sweden)
Le Canard (Belgium): "With a wide and inventive panorama of well meted-out innovation, Basco keeps us interested throughout."