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Written in fRoots issue 343/344, 2012


LEPISTÖ & LEHTI
Radio Moskova
Aito AICD 017 (2011)

It’s remarkable how attractive audiences around the world find this, on the face of it simple, accordion and double bass duo. But there’s an involving lyricalness and completeness to their playing, a warmth in the original tunes they make that evolve from Finnish traditional music, including tango, and expand to touch other traditions.
     Markku Lepistö, long one of Finland’s finest players of the diatonic push-pull melodeon-type accordion and the bigger chromatic button accordion, and bassist Pekka Lehti came together while playing with Värttinä, and in doing so seem have worked out that just an accordion and bass can not only cover the sound spectrum pretty effectively but be drawn out into some sounds and interactions they wouldn’t be prompted to try in a bigger band.
     This album projects their charm and innovative musical ease with one another, and the booklet notes, short though they are, give just enough context for each item in a pleasing varied, rich-sounding set that often has echoes from their not overly distant youths. In Snadina, Lehti’s nonchalant whistling, Ennio Morricone film-score style, over a slabs of rolling melody, is inspired by his memory of whistling to dispel fear when walking home as a child alone through a dark forest. The title track recalls his listening in the 1970s to Radio Moscow on a valve radio, and wrecking the same radio when playing bass guitar through it in the subsequent decade’s punk rock. The opener is a waltz for a present-day two-year-old by Lepistö, and the album ends with a gentle traditional march that he remembers as played and sung by the local brass band and choir during his childhood.
     The likeableness of the music carries through to the CD pack itself, an innovative piece of cardboard-folding by a Swedish manufacturer that protects and presents the CD in a way that neatly mirrors the folding of the accordion bellows printed on it.

     www.aitorecords.com


© 2011 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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