A Melange: Väsen with Mike Marshall and Darol Anger and "Misch Masch"

Some American folk musicians mingle with Swedish folk musicians to create today's random tune, Misch Masch. Väsen is a Swedish folk music ensemble formed officially in 1990 for a music gathering in Norway. Väsen plays traditional instruments such as the nyckelharpa but it was adding a guitar that gave the band a unique sound. They play on this song with American mandolin player Mike Marshall, a leader in the New Acoustic Music movement that blends folk, bluegrass, jazz and world music. Also featured on the song is Marshall's longtime collaborator Darol Anger, an American violinist with an extensive background in jazz, folk and classical music. Misch Masch can be found on the 2007 album Mike Marshall & Darol Anger with Väsen.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4sen; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Marshall_(musician); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Acoustic_Music

Do a Little Dance: Väsen with Mike Marshall and Darol Anger and "Timo's Jig"

Today's random tune, Timo's Jig is a product of a Swedish band with a couple of American folk musicians. Väsen is a Swedish folk music ensemble formed officially in 1990 for a music gathering in Norway. Väsen plays traditional instruments such as the nyckelharpa but it was adding a guitar that gave the band a unique sound. They play on this song with American mandolin player Mike Marshall, a leader in the New Acoustic Music movement that blends folk, bluegrass, jazz and world music. Also featured on the song is Marshall's longtime collaborator Darol Anger, an American violinist with an extensive background in jazz, folk and classical music. Timo's Jig can be found on the 2007 album Mike Marshall & Darol Anger with Väsen.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A4sen; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Marshall_(musician); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darol_Anger

Not Pilaf: Väsen, Mike Marshall and Darol Anger with "Couscous"

Some American folk musicians mingle with Swedish folk musicians to create today's random tune, Couscous. Väsen is a Swedish folk music ensemble formed officially in 1990 for a music gathering in Norway. Väsen plays traditional instruments such as the nyckelharpa but it was adding a guitar that gave the band a unique sound. They play on this song with American mandolin player Mike Marshall, a leader in the New Acoustic Music movement that blends folk, bluegrass, jazz and world music. Also featured on the song is Marshall's longtime collaborator Darol Anger, an American violinist with an extensive background in jazz, folk and classical music. Couscous can be found on the 2007 album Mike Marshall & Darol Anger with Väsen.

(Im)Permanence: Mike Marshall and Darrol Anger with Väsen on "Egypt"

In New York City, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, sits the Egyptian Temple of Dendur. A casualty of the construction of the Aswan High Dam, it was given as a gift to the United States by Egypt and brought to New York in 1963.

If you walk around to the side of the Temple, you'll see a bunch of graffiti from multiple time periods on the side wall. That in itself is the subject for an essay - the human impulse to leave its mark on anything and everything it encounters. Look closely at the graffiti and you'll see the name of a man who lists his residence as Brooklyn, New York and the date sometime in the 1800s.

I thought long and hard about this little irony when I first saw that graffiti at the Temple. In the 1800s, when this man came by on an expedition or as a tourist, he wrote his name on the Temple wall like others before him thinking that for thousands more years the temple would stand alone and that the few others who braved the Egyptian desert to reach that lonely outpost would see his name. Little did he know that one day, an endangered temple given as a gift would put his name in an art museum in the very place that he came from. He affixed his name to what he thought would be a permanent marker in Egypt until the end of time. The impermanence of everything in the universe now has guaranteed that his name will be visible, perhaps in s better state of permanence and perhaps not, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

As I am visiting my mother, who is in her early 80s and is in the early signs of dementia, I have been thinking about the permanence and impermanence of things in our lives. Of course there is the issue of my mother's life and eventual death, but also the life she had, full of memories bad and good, which seem to slip away little by little like a slow leak in a bucket. As the poem Ozymandias proclaims, even the mighty end up "colossal wrecks" in "lone and level sands" that stretch far away. But you don't have to be mighty to realize that all that we have been and all that we were are thralls to impermanence. I won't leave a huge shattered visage in the sand to mark my passing, but the result will be the same.

So, with that melancholy thought, a downtempo reflective tune for you today in the form of Egypt by Väsen with Mike Marshall and Darrol Anger. Väsen is a Swedish folk band formed in 1989, who created a different sound for Swedish folk by adding some modern guitar work over the traditional Swedish styles. As they have evolved, they have moved away from playing traditional tunes toward their own compositions. They maintain a busy international touring schedule, have released 15 albums, and often collaborate with American musicians Mike Marshall and Darrol Anger. Marshall is a mandolin player and multi-instrumentalist who has recorded in a variety of genres and has collaborated with artists such as Béla Fleck and Mark O'Connor. Darrol Anger is a violinist who also has performed with some of contemporary music's most accomplished musicians, and currently leads a group called Republic of Strings which uses classical, jazz and folk as its springboard. Egypt can be found on the 2007 CD Mike Marshall and Darrol Anger with Väsen.