JPP
Kaustinen Rhapsody
Olarin Musiikki OMCD 53 (1994)

TROKA
Troka
Olarin Musiikki OMCD 54 (1994)

TALLARI
Konsta
Kansanmusiikki-instituutti KICD 31 (1994)

It's probably hard to understand the significance of JPP if all you have to go on are their albums, good as they are. Yes, JPP is a dance band, a bunch of fiddlers gathered around a harmonium and bass. But the reality is that they're so deeply embedded in the tradition of Finland's fiddling heartland, the townships around Kaustinen in the Perho river valley, so accepted as the current central force, that when they make a new album and take a few steps forward, the whole tradition (or most of it - there are, as always, resistors) shuffles onwards (traditions have no reverse gear). People take the new ideas as permission, and there's a knock-on effect, particularly among the young players.
      So here's a new album, Kaustinen Rhapsody, in which the tunes have still more unexpected melodic corners and ledges, interesting modulations and rhythmic changes, while still carrying the dancer with their exuberant swing, and the main composer and arranger of this subtle manipulation continues to be self-effacing harmonium player Timo Alakotila. He shares the task with fiddler Arto Järvelä, who has emerged as onstage spokesman as the band becomes more of a concert unit, including regular US touring, and indeed this album, which shows evidence of the band's contacts with fiddling Florida/Texas Finn Erik Hokkanen, is licensed to Green Linnet.

      Also with a Green Linnet Xenophile release is the debut album by Troka, a smaller unit than JPP with a wider-ranging tradition power-base, but very much a Kaustinen band, featuring Alakotila with four musicians in their early 20s - Matti Mäkelä from JPP on fiddle, Ville Ojanen (main composer and arranger with rising folk-thrash heroes Folkkarit) on fiddle, viola and mandolin, fellow Folkkarit member and part-time JPP-er Timo Myllykangas on bass, and accordionist Minna Luoma. All of them are jumping at the chance for innovation. The tunes are largely by Alakotila, Ojanen or Mäkelä, and some reach out to investigate Balkan and American ideas and bring them home. If JPP is the advance guard of the main column, Troka are its scouts.

      From the fact that they are Finland's only state-salaried folk band, one might expect Tallari to be forelock-tugging reactionaries, but they aren't. Granted, they do have a responsibility to display as many aspects of Finnish traditional music as possible, but they don't go in for stagey reconstructions or false smiles; the music is the thing. The latest album deals exclusively with the compositions of Kaustinen fiddler Konsta Jylhä, who died in 1984. He led Kaustisen Purppuripelimannit, which broke through to the wide Finnish public in the early 1970s with much radio and TV and a gold disc, and became the figurehead of the folk music revival.
Except for Vaiennut viulu (Silent violin), with Anna-Maija Karjalainen's ringing kantele and Liisa Matveinen's wordless vocal, and Laulu (Song) led by the chromatic kantele of guest Valentina Matvejeva from Petrozavodsk in the Republic of Karelia, Konsta is largely small-group Ostrobothnian dance music - polkkas, polskas, with the odd sotiisi (schottische), march or waltz - typically on fiddles, 2 or 5-row accordeon and sometimes kantele, with harmonium and bass. Also guesting are flute and tuba player Kurt Lindblad, and original member and current leader of Purppuripelimannit Hannu Rauma. The arrangements are by members of Tallari, not reconstructions - and the album has a life and charm of its own, the warm heart of Kaustinen music.

© 1994 Andrew Cronshaw