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Written in fRoots issue 336, 2011


HOT’N’TOT
The Hottest Shot
Lusti LustiCD005 (2011)

I get to hear a lot of fiddling, most of it technically excellent, but the joyful exuberance, skill taken for granted, of today’s Kaustinen fiddling really lifts the soul, and this CD by new quartet Hot’n’Tot captures that wonderfully. Drawing on Appalachian influences and other influences they emerge with a high-energy melodic music, that while drawing on Appalachian and other influences emerges as something that couldn’t come from anywhere but the small patch of ever more dazzling fiddle-frenzy in west central Finland.
     The line-up, posing on the cover in gunslinger mode, is fiddlers Juho Puronaho and Tero Hyväluoma, both at the forefront of the Kaustinen scene in bands including Frigg, Tötterssön and Snekka, fast-rising guitarist Anssi Salminen, and on bass Ilkka Heinonen, of various bands including the all-jouhikko Jouhiorkesteri.
     Moving between strong originals and trad, finally bursting into Texas-waltz style song, they make an astonishingly tightly-meshed sound full of wit and flair that can change tempo and feel on a Euro-cent, the lead-line switching from moment to moment from twin-fiddle zip, single-fiddle line-taking and Salminen’s hot chording and single-line guitaring, and Heinonen shows the new-style folk bass-playing flair in which it’s clear that the big-fiddle player knows the tunes inside-out on a small fiddle too.
     Hot-shot dudes indeed. Listen at www.myspace.com/hot39n39tot

© 2011 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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

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