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Written in fRoots issue 306, 2008


VARIOUS ARTISTS
Miracle Of Kaustinen
Kansanmusiikki-instituutti KICD 100 (2008)

FRIGG
Economy Class
Frigg FRIGG 00004 (2008)

KINGS OF POLKA
Every Man’s Polka
GO’ Danish GO 0908 (2008)

The compilation Miracle of Kaustinen, subtitled less religiously The Musical Story Of A Small Village, is a useful introduction to the background of the ever more highly skilled and creative living fiddle tradition and subculture that revolves around a cluster of villages on the meandering river Perho in the gently undulating fields and forests of west central Finland.
      It’s not a complete history, of course, and focuses on the dominant instrument, fiddle, leaving out the area’s kantele and other traditions, but in recordings from 1956 to 2008 it’s not only an appealing, varied listen but gives a good grounding in quintessential Kaustinen sounds, styles and names, in tunes written by fiddlers including Konsta Jylhä, Viljami Niittykoski, Friiti Ojala, Mauno Järvelä, Arto Järvelä, Timo Valo and Ville Kangas. They’re played by a spread of bands in which Kaustisen Purppuripelimannit, the fiddles, harmonium and bass combo originally led by Konsta, dominates with six tracks, but also featuring Kankaan Pelimannit with vocals from Heikki Laitinen, Hääpelimannit (that track has bad tape wow; why include it?), JPP, Tallari, Ampron Prunni and some demonstration of the vigour of today’s music with Troka, Snekka, Näppärit playing and singing a Ville Kangas/Mauno Järvelä song, and Kangas’s own rocky Qwenland.

      Space on the CD’s nineteen tracks covering half a century of musical fertility is of course limited, but oddly unrepresented (as is the mighty, manic Tötterssön and others of Kaustinen’s recent thrash-fiddle tradition) is a band that, even though partly Norwegian in the persons of the Larsen brothers Gjermund and Einar Olav, is a dynamo of current Kaustinen music: Frigg. Following last year’s live album, with Economy Class (the title reflecting the amount of globetrotting they’ve been doing) it’s back to the studio for a new set of smart tunes mostly written by band members, the most prolific being cousins Antti and Esko Järvelä.
      Dispensing with the hard-to-fly-with harmonium that’s long been a characteristic of Kaustinen bands (though Esko in particular is a hot harmonium driver in other contexts, and plays piano with Frigg when there’s one around), in Frigg the fiddles, usually five of them, are backed by a bass, guitar and cittern rhythm section, with guitarist Tuomas Logrén sometimes switching to a welcome dobro whizz. This time out they’re joined for one number by the cutely sparky young female vocals of the quartet Kardemimmit, and for a jubilant, almost Carmina Burana-like treatment of the Norwegian folksong Lars Lenkelifot by Kaustinen’s wedding choir and a brass section. Good album? All the Frigg albums are strong; plunge in anywhere.

      Antti and Esko Järvelä, apparently insufficiently occupied with the slew of bands they’re already in - Antti in JPP, Esko in Tötterssön and Tsuumi Sound System, both in Frigg and Baltic Crossing – have formed the trio Kings Of Polka with Danish fiddler and Baltic Crossing colleague Kristian Bugge. Esko and Kristian play fiddle; Antti’s a very fine fiddler himself, but in JPP and Frigg he plays double bass, and in the Kings he’s the guitarist, snappily bar-chording in a Hot Club kind of way and finally letting rip more rockily on the title track. As the band’s name implies, there’s a polka bias, chugging and perky, in the tunes they play, which are largely from Denmark with some from Finland and Sweden, but it’s not an exclusive deal and they’re no slaves to that rhythm.

      www.frigg.fi, www.myspace.com/friggtheband, www.gofolk.dk, www.myspace.com/kingsofpolka


© 2008 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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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).

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