The "medieval synthesizer"

March 9, 2006 8:45 AM

Hurdy Gurdy. Swedish techno band that uses only sounds sampled from the hurdy gurdy. [via NPR] [a little more inside]
posted by Squid Voltaire (12 comments total)

For those of you who missed the NPR bit on the 2nd, Stefan Brisland-Ferner and Hållbus Totte Mattsson are making some pretty sweet techno music. According to the piece, all of the sounds used are either made by the hurdy gurdy (apparently these are two of the best players in the world) or made with it (drumming on it, rubbing it, &c.). Here are some (short) mp3 streams, and the CD, Prototyp is also available on iTunes. ink19 review.
posted by Squid Voltaire at 8:46 AM on March 9, 2006

Is this too sparse for a FPP? Perhaps... but I would have wanted someone to let me know about hurdy gurdy techno, if I were you.
posted by Squid Voltaire at 8:46 AM on March 9, 2006

Where's the link to the swedish duo?
posted by furtive at 8:48 AM on March 9, 2006

As near as I can find, the first link is the best link to the musicians themselves, although it's really Brisland-Ferner's other band, I think. I had thought that if you had a band, these days, you also had a slick web page, but I couldn't find it.

Perhaps I should have linked to their record label, which has more info... but uses frames. Here's the relevant frame.
posted by Squid Voltaire at 8:57 AM on March 9, 2006

I always thought the hurdy gurdy was a surprisingly awesome instrument.
posted by Foosnark at 10:02 AM on March 9, 2006

Histories of ages past
Unenlightened shadows cast
Down through all eternity
The crying of humanity.
'Tis then when the Hurdy Gurdy Man
Comes singing songs of love
posted by Kirth Gerson at 11:03 AM on March 9, 2006

you know who else likes the hurdy gurdy? matmos, that's who. see here.

i saw these kids play at yerba buena, talked to them about the hurdy gurdy and even got to try playing it a bit. good times, good times.
posted by christy at 12:42 PM on March 9, 2006

The hurdy-gurdy, btw, was the contraption being played by Sting at the Oscars two years back, backing Alison Krauss on "You Will Be My Ain True Love". Here's a bit on the history of the hurdy-gurdy and recent musicians' use of it, such as Peter Gabriel.
posted by dhartung at 2:00 PM on March 9, 2006

hurdy gurdy man, donovan, 1968.
posted by crunchland at 3:01 PM on March 9, 2006

crap.
posted by crunchland at 3:03 PM on March 9, 2006

Just to fill this post out a little, here are some other hurdy-gurdy links:
http://matthias.loibner.net/
http://www.hurdygurdy.com/info/disc.htm
http://www.unicorn-ensemble.at/homeE.html
http://www.oniwytars.de/english/navi-engl.html
http://members.chello.at/simon.wascher/veroeffentlichungen.htm
There are some very good music clips on some of those pages, by the way.
I have the "Prototyp" album and find it quite enjoyable (and it's certainly a very creative project). But please note that although the hurdy-gurdy originated as a folk instrument, a more "sophisticated" form was developed and used in early Baroque music. In addition to the -- often quite virtuosic -- folk and "modern" recordings out there, there are also some good classical recordings featuring (or at least including) the Baroque instrument.
posted by uosuaq at 7:28 PM on March 9, 2006

christy - Matmos sprang into my mind, too. The difference being that they make mindblowingly complex and inventive music by sampling medieval instruments (on The Civil War especially), while this bunch make pretty tepid techno.
posted by jack_mo at 6:06 AM on March 10, 2006