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Written in Folk Roots issue 161, 1996

ERKKI RANKAVIITA & PINNIN POJAT
Erkki Rankaviita & Pinnin Pojat
Kansanmusiikki-instituutti KICD 44 (1996)

OTTOPASUUNA
Suokaasua
Texicalli TEXCD002 (1996)

TAPANI VARIS
Munniharppuuna
Kansanmusiikki-instituutti KICD 46 (1996)

Three albums involving three of the most ubiquitous and many-faceted roots musicians in Finland - fiddle, mandolin and nyckelharpa player Arto Järvelä, Kimmo Pohjonen (harmonica, accordion and gogo marimba) and bassist Tapani Varis.
As the duo Pinnin Pojat, Järvelä and Pohjonen deliver a gig of wit and eccentricity in the tradition of Finnish comic song, very much in the line of veteran performer Erkki Rankaviita. Live, even a non-Finn could get the gist, but it’s hard for a foreigner to get the message off a CD. Every linguistic group has music which is important to it but which doesn’t export - why should it? - except in this case to Finnish-America, which itself generated a number of performers in this genre.
Much more comprehensible to foreigners, partly because it’s instrumental and partly because it’s the sort of band to blend into any foreign festival bar session, throwing new tunes into circulation, is Ottopasuuna, involving Värttinä members Janne Lappalainen (bass clarinet, whistle, octave mandolin) and Kari Reiman (fiddle) with the always quietly excellent Petri Hakala (mandolin, cittern, guitar), percussionist and flautist Kristiina Ilmonen and the aforementioned Kimmo Pohjonen.
Suokaasua is a no-frills recording of a set of tunes composed largely by Pohjonen, with two by Reiman and one by Hakala. As Jim Sutherland once (or probably more than once) said “I’m Scottish, so every tune I write is a Scottish tune”; so, while there’s no overt attempt to fit in with Finnish traditional forms here, these musicians are strongly rooted and these are Finnish tunes. Live, the band has an intricate energy, the assurance of skill, and new member Ilmonen’s percussion has a powerful effect; on the CD I’d have liked to have heard more of that, more thump and splash - the fire seems a bit too well under control.
Tapani Varis doesn’t play bass at all on Munniharppuuna, which translates as “Mouth-harpoon”; it’s an album devoted to his jaws-harp playing. He’s joined by, amongst others, fellow-members of exploratory sample-driven band Ruumen, but though Teemu Korpipää throws in the odd subtle sample this set of largely Swedish-Finnish, Swedish and Norwegian tunes keeps the focus on the lead instrument, solo and accompanied by more jaws-harps including a bass one, fiddle, viola, jouhikko, bass flute, overtone-flute and occasional touches of guitar and tenor banjo.


© 1995 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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