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Written in fRoots issue 274, 2006


VILLE KANGAS
Yöaika
Visio VISI 0001 (2005)

VILLE OJANEN
Rautavaara
Seita SEITACD 009 (2005)

In Finland, particularly revolving round the fiddle hub of Kaustinen, there are many fine young fiddlers, springing from the world of pelimanni bands, the teaching of Mauno Järvelä and the increasing number of music institutions of Finland that have folk music departments. There could be dozens of rather similar-sounding fiddle albums. But another factor in Finnish music is a climate of exploration, which is encouraged by the music institutions and the active Finnish music information and export organisations. Recent solo albums by two of the most creative fiddlers from the Kaustinen scene, and the live bands they’ve put together to play them, show this questing spirit.

      Ville Kangas’ Yöaika follows 2001’s rather over-dense Suuri Erehdys with a new set of compositions with a bit more breathing space, and more do-able live. He’s an excellent traditional fiddler, session player, composer and arranger, and his work earlier with Turo Myllykangas showed a witty pop sensibility. For this album he favours a very electric, ecstatically soaring fiddle sound, weaving through muscular arrangements of electric guitar, keyboards and rhythm section, a sort of exuberant and melodic jazz-rock, often massive with an accent on the rock, far away from Kaustinen’s pelimanni music but still connected to the ever-evolving Kaustinen musical dialect. Fine in its way, it’s only a part of the oeuvre of the quirky and ever-perverse Kangas. (The press launch of Yöaika consisted of a leisurely afternoon on a tiny, er, launch on the river Perho at which he resolutely played not fiddle but harmonium, accompanying Frigg fiddler Antti Järvelä in local dance tunes).

      Ville Ojanen has long been a fiddler for Kaustinen dance group Ottoset, recently writing dance-dramas for them. On his album he favours a more acoustic tone and instrumentation than Kangas. The title track has chugging Apocalyptica-style cellos, screaming electric guitar and wordless vocals; elsewhere it’s a very vari-textured, multiple-styled mix of reeds, low brass, piano, flute, guitar, harmonium, accordion, bass and percussion in intricate, direction-shifting tunes. There are a couple of traditional tunes, and his rather fine compositions are more identifiably an extension of the folk fiddling tradition that for both Ojanen and Kangas provides a grounding, education and springboard into exploration.


© 2006 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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

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