Sweden's Abba may have been international pop stars in the '70s, but they never played folk music. So why do Ranarim include a shout-out to the fab foursome on the sleeve of their debut album of traditional Swedish folk music, Till the Light of Day (Northside)?

"It's not meant seriously," singer Ulrika Bodén said, laughing. "It's just that we're two males and two females, one blonde, one brunette. And I listened to Abba when I was a little girl."

Bodén and Sofia Sandén form the vocal half of Ranarim, with Jens Engelbrecht on guitar and mandola and Niklas Roswall on nychelharpa, a keyed fiddle. Together they work a playful, energetic twist on traditional music, blending voices and instruments, as on "Stolt Ingrid" (Proud Ingrid) (RealAudio excerpt), to create a remarkably fulsome sound.

They've been working on their formula for three and a half years — since Bodén, Sandén and Roswall met at Stockholm's Royal Academy of Music, where they were studying traditional styles. Part of their curriculum consisted of forming small groups and touring. "We knew we wanted to use guitar," Bodén explained, "and Niklas knew Jens, so that was it. We just kept going after school."

Although Ranarim (whose name means "beautiful blanket of dew") seem part of a young, acoustic Zeitgeist sweeping the European scene (England's Eliza Carthy is another prime example), they're not doing this because they loathe samplers and beats.

"We're not trying to find our roots," insisted Bodén, who, along with Sandén, has sung with the electric roots band Hoven Droven (and is still a member of the voices and strings trio Rosenberg 7), while Engelbrecht is in Bark, who mix traditional music with dance beats. "It's not a movement against computers. We just happen to love the music and the acoustic sound of the old instruments. We listen to pop and rock music, so perhaps we get some influences from that."

Along with the ancient ballads, gory tales presented with youthful glee, Ranarim inject a strong dose of humor into their music. "Hin å Hätta" (RealAudio excerpt), according to Light of Day's liner notes, includes a bizarre rhyme made up of 22 "of our most popular goat names."

That, Bodén explained, was an accident. "We needed something good to finish the piece, so we found some goat names in a book and used them."