Kasia Kapela - vocals, fiddle
Basia Songin - vocals, Owl Viela, polish frame drum
Gabriella Josefsson - vocals, fiddle
Säde Tatar - vocals, flutes, bagpipe, jew's-harp
Gabbi Dluzewski - vocals, Swedish mandola
Daniel Dluzewski - vocals, double bass
ACROSS THE BALTIC SEA is a powerful musical journey uniting Poland’s SUTARI and Sweden’s FRÄNDER in a spellbinding celebration of shared roots, cross-border traditions, and friendship carried on waves of hypnotic folk harmonies and modern acoustic energy.
ACROSS THE BALTIC SEA brings together Poland’s trailblazing vocal trio Sutari and Sweden–Estonia’s explosive heavy-folk force Fränder in a boundary-breaking celebration of Nordic and Slavic traditions — where ancestral songs, hypnotic polyphony, and acoustic rock energy collide to forge a powerful musical bridge of sisterhood, kinship, and shared roots.
BIOGRAPHY
The Baltic Sea both divides and unites. Its vast waters separate nations geographically, yet for centuries they have carried songs, stories, trade routes, and shared histories from shore to shore. ACROSS THE BALTIC SEA was born from this paradox — a meeting between the Polish vocal trio Sutari and the Swedish–Estonian band Fränder, two of the most distinctive voices on today’s European folk scene.
The collaboration began in 2020, when the musicians came together to record an EP that wove Polish, Swedish and Estonian traditional music into a shared sonic landscape. What started as an artistic encounter soon evolved into a living, breathing project — a concert experience shaped by friendship, curiosity, and the deep listening of kin.
Sutari — one of Poland’s leading folk exports — is renowned for their powerful three-part polyphony, trance-like arrangements, and bold reinterpretations of traditional Polish songs. Since their award-winning debut at the Polish Radio New Tradition Festival in 2012, they have toured in over twenty countries, performed at WOMEX, recorded for KEXP, and released critically acclaimed albums including Wiano, Osty, Siostry Rzeki, and Tamoj. Their work merges ancient female traditions with contemporary sensibility, experimenting with vocal techniques, handmade instruments, and the musical potential of everyday objects.
Fränder emerged from the forests of Sweden and Estonia like a flash of lightning — blending Nordic traditional music with a modern, high-energy expression often described as “heavy folk.” Following international touring success and the groundbreaking album FRÄNDER II, they have become one of Sweden’s major folk exports, touring extensively across North America and Europe while curating their own festivals in Uppsala and New York City. With acoustic instruments, driving grooves, seductive harmonies, and subtle echoes of rock influences, they push the boundaries of what folk music can be.
In ACROSS THE BALTIC SEA, these two forces merge. Polish multi-voiced song traditions meet Nordic dance rhythms. Slavic lyricism intertwines with Swedish kulning calls and Estonian flute spells. Fiddles, Swedish mandola, double bass, frame drum, bagpipes, and jew’s harp create a textured and dynamic soundscape. At its heart are six voices — powerful, raw, and deeply connected.
The project explores roots that stretch across borders and generations. It uncovers common threads in seemingly distant traditions and reflects a contemporary world where identities overlap and cultural exchange is constant. Above all, it is a story of kinship — true to the meaning of the word “Fränder”: family, relatives, close friends.
ACROSS THE BALTIC SEA transforms the Baltic from a border into a bridge.
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