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Written in fRoots issue 239, 2003


FRIGG
Frigg
Frigg FRIGG00001 (2002)

TSUUMI
Avoin Kenttä
Tsuumi TSUUMICD001 (2002)

SPONTAANI VIRE
Kaahu
Spontaani Vire SVCD1 (2002)

VARIOUS
Ahjo 2
Central Ostrobothnia Polytechnic COPCD002 (2002)

A bunch of impressive albums from Finland’s new wave of hot young musicians and bands.

      Frigg features three of the ongoing dynasty of fiddling Kaustinen Järveläs – Antti, Esko and Alina – who also cover double bass and harmonium, with Petri Prauda on cittern and mandolin and Tuomas Logrén on guitar and dobro, plus two Norwegian fiddle and hardingfele players, Gjermund and Einar-Olav Larsen. Their album is hugely recommended – this is the essence of what the Finnish fiddling fuss is about. The band flies, in a mix of traditional and their own tunes, all shapely, ingenious and delivered with acute mastery and massive swing and energy. The Norwegian input blends perfectly and adds another dimension, as does the curling whizz of Logrén’s dobro.
      Any great session in Kaustinen these days is bound to include some or most of these musicians, and now they’ve got around to being a band they’re the ideal item for a festival booker wanting a state-of the art Finnish/Norwegian fiddle band that when not on stage can be counted on to be mixing it with the local musicians.

      Tsuumi is a dance group, Helsinki-based but deriving a substantial proportion of its personnel and approach from the evolution from folk-dance into classy choreography that has happened in Kaustinen with the group Ottoset and the generations it has spawned. The Tsuumi CD comprises music made for various productions by Tsuumi’s band, using fiddles, viola, nyckelharpa, accordion, guitar, bouzouki, mandolin, harmonium, piano, percussion and double bass, augmented by guests as the production required.
      Much of the composition is by the band’s accordionist Hannu Kella, a fine musician in the grand new Finnish tradition of mellifluous accordion subtlety. Also compositional contributors and band members, though they evidently didn’t make it to the photo session, are Frigg’s Antti and Esko Järvelä. (Esko is, incidentally, the son of JPP’s Mauno Järvelä). Replete with syncopation and gutsy drive, and the instrumental command that’s a given with the Finnish roots new-wave, the music swirls, pauses, leaps off again, echoing the changes that came about in Finnish folk dance rooted music with JPP but expanding the range of textures and instrumentation.

      The band Spontaani Vire has been around for a few years now, but its members are still in their early twenties. Harmonium player Eero Grundström is one of the land’s best, often to be seen around the festivals and town squares of Finland energetically driving his distinctive and diminutive pale blue folding harmonium, deftly replacing keys as they jump out under his fingers or occasionally getting out and under to fix the bits of string that connect its pedals to its bellows. He’s also a wonderfully lyrical piano-player; there are just occasional touches of that here, plus a closing piece that reminds of the creative virtues of analog synths. The equally able other members of the quartet are accordionist Anne-Mari Kivimäki, bassist/percussionist Sara Puljula (who has just joined Gjallarhorn) and violinist and nyckelharpa player Emilia Lajunen. Together they’ve made a masterly piece of work, a thing of quirkily beautifully-arranged tunes of varied form and texture. As with Frigg and Tsuumi, the new generation leads pelimanni-music onward and outward.

      Virtually all of the musicians involved in Frigg, Spontaani Vire and Tsuumi have passed through, indeed most are still involved in, the remarkably effective structures of Finnish folk music education. Ahjo 2 displays new compositions by yet more, specifically those who are studying at Kokkola’s Conservatory of Central Ostrobothnia to be teachers of folk music. If that sounds academic, the music certainly isn’t. With leads taken by fiddle, subtle chromatic and diatonic accordion, harmonium, serene vocals, liquid piano, kantele, and drawing widely on elements including hambo and tango, it’s a balanced and well-flowing listen, a preview of emerging musicians and something of a cross-section through the ways in which styles and possibilities are developing and evolving in Finland.


© 2003 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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Links:
fRoots - The feature and review-packed UK-based monthly world roots music magazine in which these reviews were published, and by whose permission they're reproduced here.

Kansanmusiikki-instituutti (Finland's national Folk Music Institute).

It's not practical to give, and keep up to date, current contact details and sales sources for all the artists and labels in these reviews, but try Googling for them, and where possible buy direct from the artists.
Helsinki's Digelius Music record shop is a great source of Finnish roots and other albums.
CDRoots.com in the USA, run by Cliff Furnald, is a reliable and independent online retail source, with reviews, of many of the CDs in these reviews; it's connected to his excellent online magazine Rootsworld.com 

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