Henry Kaiser & David Lindley in Norway”The...

Henry Kaiser & David Lindley in Norway

“The Sweet Sunny North”

Shanachie

Anyone who, like Kaiser and Lindley, can make back-to-back albums celebrating the indigenous music of Madagascar and Norway deserves a special Grammy for musical U-turn of the year.

Yet despite the geographical distance between those countries, the similarities of the projects outweigh the differences. The Norway outing, like its predecessor “A World Out of Time,” is bursting with beauteous musical finds. Once again, the ever-eclectic Kaiser and Lindley serve as deferential tour guides more than cultural imperialists, lending their own services sparingly, if at all.

Given that Norway is virtually absent from the list of wellsprings of Western pop, it’s fascinating to discover that many of the 28 songs sound hauntingly familiar; others, to be sure, sound alien.

The easiest entry points for pop fans in need of touchstones are Lindley’s own song “Alien Invasion,” as interpreted by 16-year-old singer Deepika. She sings in Norwegian and English in a reggae-ized arrangement not drastically different from Lindley’s own. The title song, “The Sweet Sunny North,” is a traditional American folk tune that Lindley and Kaiser play in tandem with Hans and Tone Frederik, and it sounds straight outta Appalachia.

From the purely Norwegian-yet-still-familiar end of the pack is “Polsdance From Saltdal,” a quasi-waltz played by classically trained violinist Susanne Lundeg on a conventional fiddle, as opposed to the Norwegian hardanger violin that pops up frequently elsewhere.

Occupying the otherworldly realm are “I Don’t Respect Those Guys” featuring an a cappella troika of female warblers who can sound like Islamic chanters, and “Upstaen,” a bouncing duet between Bjorgulv Straume on munnharpe (the Norwegian version of the jew’s-harp) and mouth harpist Knut Reiersrud.

Others singers sound vaguely Native American or Mongolian; structurally, these songs run the gamut from simple dance tunes that could pass as Irish reels to oddly metered, thickly orchestrated numbers that could masquerade as Stravinsky outtakes.

The range of styles of Norwegian music alone is astonishing. The beauty of so much of it in this 77-minute sampler seems almost too good to be true. But as one listen quickly proves, it is true.