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In 1983, a small group of pre-teen girls in Rääkkylä, in the Karelia region of Eastern Finland, started by sisters Sari and Mari Kaasinen and their mother Pirkko, began to recite and sing old Karelian traditional poetry and songs, accompanying themselves on kantele, the Finnish national zither-like instrument. What began as a hobby quickly became a mission: to revive forgotten traditional Karelian songs and to present them in new ways. The group soon became 21-strong with fifteen singers and six young players on accordion, saxophone, guitar, double bass, fiddle and flute. Seeking new ways of presentation, the singers developed a more aggressive and powerful vocal style; loud, almost shouting. This vocal/instrumental concept was provocative and new to folk music and to Finland and Värttinä rapidly gained national recognition.
Interest in Finland grew quickly over the next five years resulting in concert performances nationwide and two albums. The first album, entitled Värttinä, recorded in Rääkkylä, Karelia in April 1987 and released on their own label, comprised traditional Karelian songs arranged mostly by Sari Kaasinen. The arrangements and presentation were exuberant and provocative and after their breakthrough appearances at the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival the same year, where they were named “Band of the Year”, the album became a favourite in the domestic folk music scene with word of the band trickling up to mainstream audiences.
The second album, Musta Lindu “Black Bird” recorded in Nurmijärvi in early 1989 again featured traditional Karelian songs, this time arranged primarily by Sari with additional arrangement from some of the other band members. These pieces were even more adventurous than those on the first album, slightly darker with more unorthodox arrangements. While perhaps not as well received as the first album, Musta Lindu did clearly indicate the more uncompromising side of the band as developing artists who were not out to replicate the past but instead were seeking to reinvent folk music.
Miero
The big news from the camp of veteran Finnish folksters is that they have just co-written the score for the stage adaptation of Lord of the Rings, which hits the West End in 2007. They are due to record the soundtrack album this summer, and it seems certain to catapult them from the fringes of world music to the commercial mainstream.
The commission has emboldened them to make by far their most experimental album. The tone is set by the opener, Anathema, which fuses storming global beats with wild fiddles and accordions while conveying genuine menace as the band’s trio of vocalists, Susan Aho, Mari Kaasinen and Johanna Virtanen, warm up for their battle with the Orcs by chanting such lines as “my loathing drips blood, my pain slashes, curses, drenches with pusâ€.
This record should come with a “parental advisory†sticker, for the venom — musically and lyrically — scarcely lets up throughout. Folk music as cultural terrorism, anyone?
from 'The Times'
TrackList:
01. Riena / Anathema
02. Valhe / The Lie
03. Mataleena
04. Synti / The Sin
05. Maaria
06. Miero / The Outcast
07. Mierontie / Path of the Outcast
08. Mustat kengät / Black Shoes
09. Lupaus / The Promise
10. Lumotar / The Enchantress
11. 9 lukkoa / 9 Locks
12. Eerama
13. Vaiten valvoin / I Lay Awake
MP3 192 kbps
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