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Written in fRoots issue 239, 2003


VÄRTTINÄ
Iki
Fréa MWCD 4042

Not that they were ever particularly “plugged”, but this is Värttinä unplugged, back to basics; and how well they do basics now. Having passed through various levels of competence, pressures of poppiness, and elegances of production of which the albums Vihma and Ilmatar were high points, Iki is a coming-of-age, revealing them as the musically skilful band they’ve become, able to make it unflashy, sincere and upfront and sound stronger than ever.
      It’s pretty much their most vocal-centred album yet. It opens with a stark solo vocal, and in Nahkaruoska (“Leather whip”) the three women, Mari Kaasinen, Susan Aho and Johanna Virtanen, spit out those high-speed, tongue-lashing unison vocals that are a trademark of Värttinä and the Rääkkylä sound. In the songs that have more time and space for harmony, while Bulgarian influences (very evident here in the accompaniment to Tauti) were one factor in building the band’s instrumental and vocal approach, and prompted some reviewers to ludicrous comparisons, what has emerged vocally is often a tight-throated, straining sound closer to neighbour Russia’s so-called “white voice”. But it uses the melodic forms of runo-song from the traditions of Finland, and indeed of the Finno-Ugrian populations within the Russian massive.
      And the material, while largely composed by band members, is as close to the essence of those traditions as it has ever been, in fact if anything closer. Most of the tunes stay more or less within the five-note compass of runolaulu, insistently and artfully rephrasing the handful of notes before inserting a new melodic section, against ingeniously-wrought accompaniments, so that while there’s a strong prevailing melodic atmosphere there’s no sameyness.
      This is the tenth Värttinä album since they began as a row of costumed little kids clutching kanteles in Rääkkylä twenty years ago, but it’s as fresh as any they’ve made.
      Iki’s release in the UK and several other countries is on Fréa, a label of Music & Words, www.musicwords.nl. In North America it’s licensed to Northside.


© 2003 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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