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Written in fRoots issue 299, 2008


VALRAVN
Valravn
Tutl SHD84 (2007)

HURIA
Sanna Kurki-Suonio
RockAdillo ZENCD 2115 / Westpark 87152 (2007)

For those wondering where the flame of Hedningarna’s pioneering, popular and certainly not time-expired meaty mix of traditional music, abrasive bowed strings, meaty percussion, samples and wild vocals might re-ignite in Nordic music, here - from Denmark this time - is Valravn.
      Faroese singer Anna Katrin Egilstrød, howls, cajoles and spits with a slightly Björk-like breathless gamine character to her voice, fiercely relishing the sounds of the several Nordic languages. With her are Instinkt’s Martin Seeberg on viola, flutes and jew’s harps, Søren Hammerlund on hurdy-gurdy and mandola, percussionist Juan Pino, and most of them pitch in with the sampled sounds manipulated by producer Christopher Juul.
      Based on traditional Danish, Faroese, Icelandic and Swedish material, including the ballads Svend I Rosengaard and Vallevan with less familiar fare, plus originals, it’s a thing of wild-dark textures and, even in the more intimate moments, a feeling of relentless, pulsing forward movement. Things calm a notch in last track, based on a Faroese traditional kvæði of a betrayed betrothed sailing to Denmark in search of her love-rat who has married another, and it’s worth leaving it running, after its waves swish away, for the untitled ‘hidden track’, whose breathy flute, whispered vocals sneak up as a late surprise. An impressive band and a welcome development, carrying on with an unfinished journey.

      Huria is the new solo album by Sanna Kurki-Suonio, one of the two first fine Finnish Hedningarna singers. With a far less massive approach than either Hedningarna or Valravn, and strongly featuring the high glassy ring and rich, low sustaining chime of a range of kanteles, the line-up is Kurki-Suonio on vocals and small 5, 10 and 15 stringed kanteles, with bigger concert and Saarijärvi kanteles played by Riitta Huttunen, and percussion, bouzouki, mandolin and some backing vocals from Jari Lappalainen.
      From this relatively sparse instrumentation producer Tapani Rinne of techno band Rinneradio creates a sound, to which he also contributes occasional smoky bass clarinet, that varies between dense and delicate and well supports the wide range of melodic styles that the trio uses in a set of creative developments on archive material from Elias Lönnröt’s prime collecting area of Kainuu (one tune unexpectedly reminds somewhat of a more southerly-European Christmas carol), and from his compilation opus Kanteletar, plus a Finnish and a French hymn and some original composition.
      Kurki-Suonio is a very poised, charismatic singer with a fine judgement of sound and how to project a lyric, caressing and curling her voice round the strong Finnish vowels, and with this trio she has an effective small mobile unit which, one hopes, will tour outside Finland; the CD’s appearance in the European World Music top 20 suggests that might be a possibility.
      www.tutl.com, www.myspace.com/valravn, www.rockadillo.fi, www.westparkmusic.eu


© 2008 Andrew Cronshaw
 

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