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Swedish/Scanian & Cajun Music

Ten years after Thor's first visit to Louisiana, this album was recorded—a vision of how music from Skåne (Scania) might sound blended with Cajun influences. Here it is, featuring top musicians from both Louisiana and Sweden.

The album is dedicated to Thor’s grandfather, Sven Svensson De la Motte. The cover photo is from a local newspaper article in 1989, when the last part of the family farm was taken by the city of Malmö to build a highway straight through the property. Sven never accepted this. He continued growing green onions next to the road and sent a bill to the city council every year for what he had lost because of the expropriation. The song “Jag har vatt i Öja” (Track 4) was a song Sven use to sing when Thor was growing up. Translations were done by Kelli Jones, Joel Savoy & Cedric Watson.

The second part of the album, Dry Bones, features ballads that Thor discovered with the help of Snild Orre and Joshua C.C. Caffery in the archives of Lafayette—songs found in both Louisiana and Sweden.
Together with Agnes Åhlund and Iris Bergcrantz from the vocal group Åkervinda, the Swedish lyrics were rewritten and transformed into new musical arrangements.