The concert is part of the collaboration Fasching X Selam.
When Jan Johansson’s classic album Jazz på svenska – Swedish folk songs was released almost sixty years ago, the jazz arrangements of traditional folk songs were something that had never been heard before, not in such a concentrated form anyway. A decade later, the record was seen as the most obvious Swedish musical expression. Now Marcus Price picks up the thread with the album Beats in Swedish, where he connects traditional folk songs with exploratory, otherworldly electronic beats.
When Marcus Price stepped onto Sweden’s hip-hop scene almost a quarter of a century ago, it was as a quarter of the innovative quartet Fattaru. Since then, his musical path has been lined with everything from brandy-marinated bass music under the alias Basutbudet, electronic club hits with the gunman Carli, laid-back futuristic hip-hop as part of the Safe House Staff sextet, as well as an innumerable number of remixes, productions and guest appearances. But now it’s as if Price stopped to explore Swedish landscapes with an overview from outer space, with the new record Beats in Swedish.
Beats in Swedish is at the same time rooted in the rich Swedish folk music, while it is in some way related to the exploration of the universe that takes place at the Esrange space base in Norrbotten. Price travels back in time, finding sounds that echoed between mountains and valleys, on lakes and islands, where cattle grazed and people struggled.
With samplers, sequencers and drum machines, he has made a 540-degree turn and staked out a direction that no one with roots in Swedish hip-hop had really set their sights on before. Although the instruments are electronic, the score is entirely soulful, and the result nothing short of magical, from the opening track Velhälsning to the final, rousing and urging track Wallåt.
To Fasching, Marcus Price brings with him, among others, Isak Hedtjärn, Eka Scratch, Magnum Coltrane Price.
