Swedish Grammy award winning folk rock band Garmarna push the boundaries of cultural influences with their new single, ‘Dagen Flyr’, which tells a tale about old age, from the Swedish speaking parts of Estonia. The song is about saying goodbye to life, and yet welcoming the inevitability of death.
Garmarna, who have been making music for the past 30 years, blur traditional and modern, and on their most recent album – their seventh in the studio – ‘Förbundet’, they make good use of the vocals of Emma Hardelin, often multi-tracking them, as well as pushing the limits of their acoustic and electric instruments, performing with pinpoint precision. It’s this attention to detail and extreme professionalism, as well as their unique blend of genres, that has won the group fans among metalheads, and classical music fans, as well as lovers of folk.
Hardelin sings with the utmost conviction, “My soul shall free itself and rise up flying” – not at all any sense of defeat. The video is as haunting as her vocals, with footage of the band, superimposed in translucent images against prints of a Baltic forest. The colour is stark, and mostly reserved for the outline of a blood red moon, and a coffin, which floats on the water, yet connected to the earth by roots which reach deeply below. Garmarna’s sound is one which will resonate with you if you enjoy Celtic music, or tv shows such as ‘Vikings’; it’s haunting, it’s powerful, it’s primal.
Watch the video for ‘Dagen Flyr’ below and find out more about Garmarna and their music online here.
