- Cloud Valley Music website -
- Andrew Cronshaw website -
- Andrew Cronshaw MySpace -

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -

Written in fRoots issue 302/303, 2008


JOUHIORKESTERI
Nikodemus
Ääniä AANIA-5 (2008)

A quartet of horse-hair strung Finnish bowed lyres, sounding like a swarm of huskily raspy fiddles or, in the case of the bass jouhikko, cello-deep, but with a slithering, edgy pitching from the fact that the strings are stopped not against a fingerboard but with the back of the fingers, which play the melody on one or two of the three or four strings while the remainder are bowed simultaneously as drones. They’re most at home with a skipping chug rhythm created by a wrist-flicking bow-reverse on the beat.
      The group comprises four leading Finnish jouhikko players: the instrument’s chief reviver and maker Rauno Nieminen, who wrote the jouhikko bible Jouhikko – The Bowed Lyre reviewed in fR294, Ilkka Heinonen, Pekko Käppi and Marianne Maans. Maans and Käppi also contribute vocals, hers dulcet and his gnomish, and Nieminen also plays jew’s-harp and overtone whistle. In material substantially drawn from transcriptions from 19th and early 20th century players including the Karelian Feodor Pratšu and album’s titular Nikodemus Hirvonen of Kesälahti, plus some originals, they can make a pretty beefy sound that sometimes, for example on the energetically pulsed Rackulbacka, reminds one of the first acoustic trio incarnation of Hedningarna.

      www.aania.fi, www.jouhiorkesteri.com


© 2008 Andrew Cronshaw
 

You're welcome to quote from reviews on this site, but please credit the writer and fRoots.

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 

For more reviews click on the regions below

NORDIC        BALTIC        IBERIA (& islands)   

CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE, & CAUCASUS   

OTHER EUROPEAN        AMERICAS        OTHER, AND WORLD IN GENERAL

- Back to Reviews Introduction page -