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Written in fRoots issue 282, 2006


PAULIINA LERCHE
Malanja
Ruote RUOCD 106

Towards the end of the 20th century young musicians from the village of Rääkkylä in North Karelia in eastern Finland were producing a sound very different from the fiddle bands of the west, featuring high-energy chromatic button accordion and fast songs with strong influence from runolaulu and rekilaulu.
      Singer, accordionist, fiddler and kantele player Pauliina Luukkanen came from Rääkkylä, as did Värttinä, of which she was an early member. With her sister she formed the lively accordion and vocals group Mimmit, and later married guitarist Peter Lerche, with whom she collaborates on her solo albums. The second of these, Malanja, features mainly her own compositions, songs and tunes built on traditional forms such as runo-song, church bell pieces and quadrilles.
      A strong player and spirited singer, she’s joined by Peter's acoustic and electric guitars, plus cittern, bagpipe, guitar and dobro from Frigg’s Petri Prauda and Tuomas Logrén, with flutes, bass and percussion, the recording debut of the pyramidal kantele-like deltar, and unexpected bursts of hot vibraphone from Arttu Takalo. Like her first solo album, Katrilli, which drew partly on musics from Pakistan and India and featured the Sabri brothers (and there are elements of sub-continent influence here too, including the Carnatic violin of Venkatesha Josyer), it’s an interesting set of very Finnish music from a name to watch, particularly if the Karelian sound of Värttinä allures.


© 2006 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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