Ale moller

[catmandu2]

I've heard some of his work with his Nordic Quartet collaborators. It seems most of it is OM (Euro mandola), but I'm also hearing something that sounds like oud, or saz.

[otterly2k]

Yeah, he's a phenomenal player. #Don't miss his collaboration with Shetland fiddler Aly Bain... an album called Fully Rigged. #It's one of my favorites. #His instrument has a funky fingerboard extension on the headstock end that allows him to get lower pitches than usually available. #you can find a picture of that at Oakwood instruments (http://www.oakwoodinstruments.co.uk/four/1-offs/1-off.htm)

[Graham McDonald]

He has been in lots of bands in Sweden over many years. Hunt out CDs by Frifot, a trio with Per Gudmunson and Lena Willemark. Also the Ale Moller Band, a band with Greek and Selegalese singers mixed with Swedish stuff. An always interesting musician

cheers

graham

[Michael Wolf]

He plays the Bass Drone Mandola form Ådin & Ekvall of Sweden. They invented this fretboard extension and the pin point capos. The oud like sounding instrument is a "Lute Mandola", also made by Ådin & Ekvall. It was made for Ale Möller and I don't know if they have made more than this one. Certainly not many.

[catmandu2]

Ah, yes...I have a Frifot recording here.

That is one great instrument--thanks for the pic. Is it me or does it not have frets 5 & 9? It looks like the 1st is kinda there. What kind of temperament is it?

[Michael Wolf]

It has some additional frets to enable the player to do quarter notes, so that they can play the swedish fiddle tunes similar to the fiddle players. Quarter notes are common in traditional swedish music. This always reminds me a bit to arabic music.

[catmandu2]

Yes. I just read a little on his website--he says he heavily pursued rembetika in Greece, which may color his stylisitc approach. It sounds really good to my ear.

[entau]

this all relates back to the "elusive" 5 string issue

I wonder if the same could be applied to the mandocello/octavemandolin 10 string "cittern" dilema

and that electric bouzouki on the Oakwood Instruments page

sweet

[Michael Wolf]

Btw.: Here's another interesting variation on the scandinavian Mandola-theme. Built by Andeas Köpke here in Germany, he's a very capable luthier.

Skandola (http://www.skandola.de/tunings.html)

[catmandu2]

Fabulous, very intriguing.

[Steve L]

Don't miss him if he ever tours near you. He's a great performer, a really inspiring player.

[Dagger Gordon]

His approach to 'world music' is tremendous. His World Heritage Orchestra is made up of people from several countries of origin who now live in Sweden, and you can see some of this on BBC's coverage of Celtic Connections Festival in 2006.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour....r.shtml (http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/music/celticconnections/prog1/ale_moller.shtml)

The intro to the first song sung by a man from Senegal is like a kora -a West African harp. What a groove they get going!