“It is not about how we play instruments, but about how the music flows, as part of the greater dance of the universe,” declares Iztok Koren of Širom in an interview for The Wire 469. The group’s polyglot vision, which the trio of banjo player Koren, vocalist and violinist Ana Kravanja and hurdy-gurdy player Samo Kutin call “imaginary folk”, ranges across vast landscapes with no defined borders. They pair it with post-rock grandiosity, trance inducing drones, and primal improvisations. Similar contemporary border-crossing approaches to traditional music can be heard all over Europe: just unfold the map and follow (mostly) the sound of the hurdy-gurdy.

The first documents of that instrument date back to around the 12th century and it is of European origin, marking it apart from other string instruments which are mostly of Arabic descent. The instrument’s capacity is remarkable, as it works in both metal and ambient settings. In The Quietus Jennifer Lucy Allan wrote that “it might sound more like a horde of infernal players from hell than a single hand cranked instrument, but herein lies its power.”

Širom
“A Bluish Flickering”
(Glitterbeat) 2022

Širom's Samo Kutin recounts how he came to his instrument: “My friend brought me a hurdy-gurdy, and I started busking, which earned me enough to live. People saw me performing in the streets, and they started to invite me to concerts or workshops.” The instrument’s power is demonstrated in the central part of the almost 19 minute long piece “A Bluish Flickering” from his group's most recent album, The Liquified Throne Of Simplicity. The composition has a labyrinthian and expansive structure like the vast cave systems in Slovenia.

France
“Do Den Haag Church”
(Stoned To Death) 2021

This performance was recorded live in Den Haag in 2014, and spread privately between friends on CD-Rs before gaining cult status through a series of bootlegs and vinyl reissues. The trio France was founded in the mid-2000s in the French city of Valence by hurdy-gurdy player Yann Gourdon, bassist Jérémie Sauvage and drummer Mathieu Tilly. Here the band jam through medieval drone and motorik rock whilst utilising the raw acoustics of the space.

Širom & Yann Gourdon
“I Want To Begin To Be Shining Through” 2023

This is where the dots on the map connect. The song “I Want To Begin To Be Shining Through” is one of five compositions Širom composed during an artistic residency with Yann Gourdon in Kranj, Slovenia, last year. The song is an interplay between two hurdy-gurdists, with Širom's Kutin playing the instrument with an acoustic resonator. Kutin describes over email how he got the idea while playing the brač instrument using a bow by the sea in Istria, Croatia: “More than from the environment, the song came out of feelings of longing and falling in love with a dear person who was unattainable for me at the time.” Širom, with Yann Gourdon, made rough material for the whole album in just three days, which was then presented live at the Sonica festival in Ljubljana. “The chemistry [with Gourdon] was good, so we’re already making exciting future plans as a quartet,” adds Koren.

Line Gate
“Apex I”
(Mappa) 2020

Prague based musician Michal Vaľko, originally from Slovakia, started the project Line Gate as a five piece post-rock band before navigating towards a solo practice, stripping the sound to the bone. On the album Apex, Vaľko builds on tenderly modulated hurdy-gurdy drones with almost psychoacoustic effects. The record consists of two 30 minute long pieces, which blend the hurdy-gurdy with layers of the human voice to the extent that they are almost indistinguishable.

Šimanský & Niesner
“Pražská Rága”
(Stoned To Death) 2022

Guitarists Jakub Šimanský and Tomáš Niesner often reference artists from the New Weird America cohort, especially acoustic guitarist Jack Rose and his band Pelt. But the duo reinterpret these guitar idioms by developing an idiosyncratic vocabulary for the wooden instrument through their lived melancholy paradoxes of Central Europe. Their latest album, Všechno Dobré (All Good in Czech), is more drone-led and meditative than Šimanský and Niesner’s previous work. The musicians alternate their steel string acoustic guitars with lap steel, whilst building drone soundscapes with a shruti box, as in “Pražská Rága”.

Sourdure
“Nostra Foeira”
(Les Disques du Festival Permanent/Pagans/Murailles Music) 2021

Ernest Bergez of Sourdure hails from the Massif Central mountain region of Southern France. He sings in French and Occitan dialects, and though his primary instrument is a violin, he employs various other instruments like bagpipes, frame drum or hurdy-gurdy, as in the carnivalesque “Nostra Foeira” from the album De Mòrt Viva, which is composed as a tarot deck. Bergez says he composes “with elements of tradition and elements of total invention without distinction.”

Eternal Zio
“03”
(Boring Machines) 2012

In the south of Europe, Treviso based Italian label Boring Machines presents strange, hurdy-gurdy driven jams on a release by Milanese outfit Eternal Zio, a semi-acoustic occult-drone quartet whose members Rella The Woodcutter, Raubaus, The Mysterious Valla and Maurizio Abate have a long history in the Italian underground and free improvisation scene. The outfit experiment with a wide array of both acoustic and electric instruments to psychedelic effect.

La Tène
“Ecorcha”
(Bandcamp) 2023

French-Swiss ensemble La Tène began as a trio of hurdy-gurdy player Alexis Degrenier, percussionist Cyril Bondi and harmonium/electronicist Laurent Peter, before expanding to a seven-piece, adding bagpipes, bass and 12-string guitar. The band build on Occitane melodies, drones, and post-rock intensity with the amplified hurdy-gurdy centred in the group’s sound. Their last album, Ecorcha/Taillée (reviewed by Vanessa Ague in The Wire 469), was recorded in a barn-turned-venue; a nod to the folk music of the Auvergne region. Listening to the longform music, you hear the hurdy-gurdy sound subtly modifying with repetition.

Enhet För Fri Musik
“Vilsen”
(Aguirre) 2022

The operations of the Gothenburg label Discreet Music and groups like Enhet För Fri Musik can be added to the mosaic of New Weird Europe musicians, although their sound is free of the hurdy-gurdy. Gothenburg’s ensemble, with members from bands like Makthaverskan and Typical Girls, weaves influence from Don Cherry’s pancultural fusions and 1960s free jazz together with influences of the US psychedelic folk scene of the 2000s. Their 2015 album Dokument 1 was reissued last year by Aguirre Records and presents their hauntological folk backed by lo-fi cassette experiments, drones and free improvisation jams.

Razen
“Regression Moon”
(Marionette) 2022

Brussels based group Razen – originally a duo of Brecht Ameel and Kim Delcour – grew into a larger ensemble, incorporating more instruments such as bagpipes on their most recent album, Regression. The track “Regression Moon” presents how gentle hurdy-gurdy drones (played here by Paul Garriau) can appear when paired with reed and wind instruments. There is a polyglot vision of folk behind Razen, too – as a student of guitar and lute, Ameel found himself playing medieval works next to contemporary compositions while being introduced to the music of cultures around the globe. “I felt these traditions shared common ground in the emotional or psychedelic way that certain resonant timbres may get under the skin,” he said to Julian Cowley in The Wire 416. “And I really wanted to explore that, using medieval instruments in improvisations to create instinctive music – with pipes and strings.”

Read Miloš Hroch's interview with Širom in The Wire 469. Wire subscribers can also read the article online via the digital library.