Karlsson's interpretation of the Scandinavian tradition compares with Gillian Welch's approach to Appalachian, Nashville and bluegrass music. The small band format and the capacity to let melancholy and the blues show through without becoming sentimentally sticky is something they have in common. The sweet and lovely gleam and shimmer against the somewhat rougher sound.

Karlsson, like Welch, strips the music down without allowing it to loose its intensity, trusting and knowing how these minimal arangements can touch the listener. There is another parallell in Karlsson and Welch's origins. Welch from well-to-do Los Angeles takes on bluegrass and country music of the early days, in much the same way as Karlsson from Stockholm is searching and finding Swedish traditional music, folk songs and hymns. Love lost and the true love and heartbreak of cheap romance novels sits next to religious hymns and chorales.

Most of the CD is Swedish, with some Danish and Norwegian material. Sofia is joined by a number of excellent musicians on this record. Esbjörn Hazelius (citern, violin and song) a versatile musician, familiar with Irish traditional music and a very good singer - the man at the core of most of the arrangements. Listen to his duets with Sofia in Brudsång and Om dagen. Another mainstay is cello player Leo Svensson, who apart from playing traditional music with Mats Berglund and Anders Norudde is also a member of critically acclaimed free form jazz group Gul 3. Harald Haugaard from Denmark on viola is also a member of Sorten Muld, he embellishes a few tracks, note his brilliant playing on Som Fågelen. As a bonus Johan Hedin is a special guest on a few tracks with his tenor nyckleharpa.