Primus Motor
Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Music
Press
"On the album cover is the group pictured on a three-wheeled railbike, a well suited metaphor. Everyone is equally important and take turns driving the music forward. They travel through a landscape of traditional Swedish folk music with sidetracks heading for Ireland and New Orleans. Blues and jazz lubricates the wheels. Primus Motor simply makes great art out of simple things." - Magnus Börjesson, Nerikes Allehanda, Sweden
"Primus Motor is something else and very good at what they do." - Lennart Götesson, Dalademokraten, Sweden
"Harmonica, mandolin and double bass. Of course! This combination of instruments lets everyone have their own space and enrich both themselves as each other in a free sphere where the music is allowed to rest in a peaceful flow." - Anna Wallentin, Västerbottens Folkblad, Sweden
This morning I’ve been listening to the new CD by Primus Motor, a Swedish folk-based trio featuring the hugely talented diatonic and chromatic player Filip Jers.
I love it from start to finish! The combo of double bass, mandolin and harmonica has a wonderful empathy, their sounds so different but complementing each other in a magical way. There is plenty of great playing from everyone, but it’s harnessed to the greater goal of a beautiful group sound.
Filip’s harmonica playing has a gorgeous romantic lyricism that will appeal to anyone who loves the instrument. He’s a cutting edge player on both overblow diatonic and chromatic, but nowhere do you get the “Look Ma!” factor – all that fabulous technique is put in the service of music and feeling. You can hear influences from Stevie Wonder, Howard Levy (and even yours truly, I’m proud to say ?), but Filip has blended them into his own delicious sound, bursting with soul, emotion and intelligence. His intonation, rhythm, choice of notes, sense of what’s right for the tune – all are faultless, and capped off with a lustrous vibrato to die for.
I recommend this album wholeheartedly to everyone who loves great music and beautiful harmonica playing.
- Brendan Power, Harmonica Legend, UK - Brendan Power
Discography
"Åka Med" - 2012
Photos
Bio
Innovative folk music with improvisation in focus
It all started in 2009 when three musicians with very different musical background met and started to explore music together. With a musical past covering folk, pop and jazz and a unique set of instruments the possibilities for what to come were wide open. As time went by they found a musical vision they all shared. It doesn't matter if it is the lyrical folk music of Sweden, the quickly moving reels of Ireland or their own compositions – the energy, the passion and the creativity in the music is the same.
This approach to music and their unusual combination of instruments have created a sound that is as unique as it is natural. At a concert with Primus Motor one can expect a rarely experienced energy and an ever-present feeling that anything can happen. When a harmonica world champion, a bass phantom and a mandolin virtuoso enters the stage together, one has no choice but to go with the flow!
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