Anne Niepold & Andy Cutting (Belgium/UK)

[AccordionUprising]

Anne Niepold & Andy Cutting have a new record coming out!
Very exciting to see these two together. Andy Cutting is absolutely top notch.
And Anne is one of my fave accordionists. Always exciting to hear her play. Some day Ill make it to Belgium, or well see her here across the planet.
[video=youtube]

 

[Eddy Yates]

Thanks for this, Bruce. Beautiful!

 

[jozz]

why do these diatonic accordions have this 'melancholic' sound to them?

they 'cry' more than regular accordions, or so it seems

must be the tuning, but what is it?

 

[Corsaire]

I heard this the other day and loved it.  As a convert to diatonic, I love Anne Niepold (she's my role model). I don't know who wrote that music, but Andy Cutting writes some great music with a wonderful simplicity.

I agree about the melancholy sound and perhaps it is the tuning.  Most of the ones I hear round here seem to be tuned demi-swing or drier but the sound can vary hugely according to the maker and if someone does a personal tuning job.  It's also possible that the wooden box gives a different tone quality - then there are different types of wood ....

 

[Eddy Yates]

The thing most remarkable to me in this video is the duet playing of the melody. I didn’t even notice it was played by both until the third time I watched it.
Uh oh....now I’ll be going back in the forum to find suggestions for a good beginner diatonic!

 

[AccordionUprising]

Niepold has worked with a number of other accordionists, sharing counterpoint seems to be a big part of that. Her records as "Deux Accords Diront" with Aline Pohl are fantastic. Especially the first, Gardadvergur.

 

[jozz]

they play almost exclusively these Celtic/Breton minor modes on these boxes, which suits them a lot

I wonder how they would sound if they played more contemporary tunes

 

[AccordionUprising]

A friend who plays button box tried to explain the bass system the Belgians had developed. I think it involved root-fifth "power chords" that were good for combining to build more complicated forms.

I spoke with Didier Laloy when he was here in Vancouver (!!!) a month ago. There were some Belgian trad players about 30 years ago who began expanding beyond the traditional forms and tunes. Now there's a whole tradition of composing and playing that goes in jazz and "new music" (modern classical, whatever that's called) directions. I love this stuff.

So Niepold has "folky" duos that play all their own compositions, non of which resemble trad dance tunes. And she's played with modern tango-jazz-ish projects with Olla Bogala, and online you find her with horns and string ensembles doing experimental (but generally melodic, not atonal) stuff. It seems related to what Astor Piazzolla did to tango. I guess if you took trad music and "nuevo tangoed" it (without it needing to be related to tango) you might end up where they're at. It's definitely "sit down and enjoy" rather than "just keep people dancing" music. Though the tango and Niepold's "musette is not dead" project take you back to dance roots.

I'm not competent to parse the technical details, so I'm not sure how much it stays within certain modes or keys. It seems pretty varied to me, though it has a moody tendency.