HAV - Haar (Polpols) - Concrete Islands

Avant-folk trio HAV return with Haar, their vivid and pensive new album of electro-acoustics for Polpols Records

It’s three years since British trio HAV (that’s Danish for ‘sea’) released their debut album Inver, a quite brilliant work where original folk tunes met ghostly electronica and field recordings. In the interim they’ve added fatherhood, marriage and organic farming in Catalonia to their respective lives. Now comes the welcome follow-up to Inver and it’s another fine effort where nature is made manifest by samples and strings alike.

Haar is the Scots name for sea fret, a dank fog which lurks on the east coast, yet the album often gives a sun-drenched sense of music and memory. These six lengthy tracks invite us to take stock of what we have in life, lest it wither on the vine before we realise. Opening cut “Broken Piano Song” begins with the noise of olive harvesting, an idyll of quiet chatter and outdoor sounds. Muffled piano thuds impose over a backing of warm strings, all southern light and charm, with distant echoes of northern starkness. It’s an airy dreamlike piece, as if brushed by winged beings, reminiscent of Virginia Astley.

“Saint-Valery” runs from a tinkle of strange samples into haunting lushness, a real verdant upswell. Inspired by the story of a WW2 veteran visiting the graves of old comrades, it’s more about grace and loyalty than horror and disillusion. Alex Ross’s gruffly fluid vocal gets slowly compressed into time warps, like a fevered and jumbled dream.

Then on “Tuscany” comes the first real glimpse of Ross the inspired violinist, over a series of stately piano measures. He conjures a tranquil melancholy here, the sound of Celtic wildness filtered through Mediterranean balm. A romantic and springy piece it soars towards a sirenic shiver.

Based on a Scottish fishing disaster, “The Alabama” is sparse and mellow in the mode of King Creosote. The purity of Iona Fyfe’s vocal informs the song’s tragic text, as piano chords nestle under folky motifs.

“Slangpolksa/Rakkaus on lepo” brings a leaping Nordic tune, showing off Ross’s masterful technique, while icy keyboards meditate and the bass burns deeply. It’s chamber music, but well off the beaten track, gaining quiet intensity with Finnish poetry and live improv thrown in.

A bold cover of “Garten Mother’s Lullaby” is the closing act, a psych-folk pastorale where ambient noise melts into a digital haze, freeing up Ross and Bridie Jackson to trade vocals.

In search of a new Eden, this avant-folk trio again finds a world of beauty and activity. Lives are wasted, love is tested, but nature just keeps humming along. For the second dark time, HAV construct their narratives of loss and belonging superbly.

HAV Bandcamp