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Written in Folk Roots issue 141, 1995

ARTHUR KYLANDER
Oi, Kuinka Engeliksi Mielin - Finnish-American Recordings 2
Kansanmusiikki-instituutti KICD 32 (1994)

PINNIN POJAT
Gogo 4
Amigo Finland AMFCD 2013 (1994)

FOLKKARIT
Pako Pohjanmaalta
Amigo Finland AMFCD 2012 (1994)

Singing mostly comic songs in Finnish and “Finglish”, Arthur Kylander, from Turku, became a leading Finnish-American entertainer, recorded on the Victor label in the late 1920s, touring until the 50s with his accordionist/pianist wife Julia, and until the 60s host to Finnish gatherings at their conservation-award-winning California tree-farm.

      There continues to be a strong link between Finland and the network of Finnish-Americans, which is particularly strong in Minnesota, the land of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegone and his Statue of the Unknown Norwegian. Pinnin Pojat fit perfectly into that drily humorous culture-clash world inhabited by Kylander and which somehow captures the spirit of middle America. Kimmo Pohjonen (vocals, 2 & 5-row melodeon, harmonica, gogo marimba) and Arto Järvelä (vocals, fiddle, mandolins and nyckelharpa) are both leading hot musicians in contemporary Finnish folk music. As Pinnin Pojat they skip regularly across the Atlantic, and in their quirky material - for example Minnesotan Kip Peltoniemi’s Minnesota Tango, here in both English and Finnish versions, or Vuoma Pertti & Eastwoodin Clintti - they continue to sew together the two communities. Not just in their music; they dress up, either in suits and garish ties or a version of the knife-belted national dress, but always with the snakeskin boots that cause muttering amongst some of the old-guard pelimanni but so accurately reflect what this smart duo is about.

      There’s more of that Finnish-American flavour in parts of the Folkkarit album, too, both in songs which sometimes strike echoes of Kylander, and in the swingy playing of the band’s two fine fiddlers, Ville Ojanen and Mika Virkkala. It’s probably hard to get a sense of it simply from a recording, but the reaction to the lights’n’smoke midnight set at this year’s Kaustinen festival was tremendous, showing the band as standard-bearer for the new wave of very able, exploring young musicians and a great advert for the Kaustinen Ala-Könni-opisto’s “Folk & Roll” course. In some ways it continues the tradition of the late band Koinurit - a wayward but sharply-constructed folk-thrash featuring singing which might often be less than beautiful but is energetic and communicative, the whole effective in enthusing a wide-open new generation with a strongly rooted adventurous music.


© 1995 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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