Taragot Sounds: Our label

Our label is called Taragot Sounds, where we produce and release music that we like so much that we think it should be available for the whole world to discover. Most of our music is in the genres of traditional Nordic music (from all ages, including our own), contemporary jazz, and a few albums that may be hard to categorise.

I started the label with the release of the album

@Lamslått⁠

with original compositions in more or less traditional style by Guro Kvifte Nesheim (who also happens to be part of the Taragot staff) and Thomas Eriksson. By now, in 2024, we have a catalogue of more than 40 titles. You can find all of them at our site at

BandCamp⁠

So far, most albums are produced by me, Knut Kvifte Nesheim and Guro Kvifte Nesheim.

We like music that is personal, but not pretentious; expressive but not hysterical; and sometimes sincerely playful.

Tellef Kvifte

Why “taragot”?

⁠

⁠

Taragot - also known as tárogató - may seem like a strange name for a record label located in Norway, as it is the name of an instrument considered as the national instrument of Hungary, and mainly used in East-European traditional music. The short version is that I like the sound of both the instrument and of its name.

I probably saw a taragot for the first time during a summer job as a guide at the Ringve Museum of musical instrument in Trondheim, but the first time I heard it live, was during a recording session with Roar Engelberg and Stefan Bucur’s ensemble, where the clarinet player also played taragot. He offered me to buy it after the session, but the price was too steep for me at the time. A little more that 10 years later, I got hold of one through Dan Lundberg, Swedish musician and scholar; as it turned out, it was the same as I was offered earlier.

For some reason, many years passed before I started to play the instrument, and then I decided to do this more seriously, I bought a new Stowasser instrument from Budapest, and late in 2022, I recorded an album where I play it:

@Reel Date⁠

. A second album was recorded in March 2024, and is scheduled to be released in the autumn.

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