VARIOUS ARTISTS
Finland - Kaustinen Folk Music Festival 1990
Brewhouse Music BHCD9130 (1990)

SEPPO SILLANPÄÄ
Lamentarola
Power Records POWLP 18 (Vinyl LP, 1990)

KOINURIT
Yllätyspaartit
Olarin Musiikki OMCD 34 (1990)

TALLARI
Lunastettava Neito
Kansanmusiikki-instituutti KICD 21 (1990)

During the 1990 international festival at the village of Kaustinen, in central Finland, Carl Shavitz set up mics and a digital recorder in the museum, a small, quiet place filled with a display of instruments from some of the Finno-Ugrian areas of northern and central Europe represented at the festival that year. The museum was the location of a series of intimate concerts, without the PA and crowds of the arena and other large festival venues a few hundred yards away, featuring Finnish musicians. Because the concerts were tucked away indoors, unless it was raining only a small coterie found them, but much Finnish music is a subtle thing, best understood close up in such circumstances.
     Finland - Kaustinen Folk Music Festival 1990 is a selection of Shavitz's recordings, which represent a cross-section rather than a complete overview. Nine performances are featured - Sikiät, a young group formed at the Kaustinen Music College, and whose debut EP was reviewed in Folk Roots some months ago; Sekvenssipolkka is particularly notable here - Kaustisen Kanteleet, seven kantele players including Hannu Saha and Antti Kettunen - Ampron Prunni, a group featuring Arto Järvelä, here playing the Swedish nyckelharpa, with harmonium, which fills the cello rôle in Finnish dance bands, melodeon, and fiddler Risto Hotakainen - Sami joik music by Lapp trio Angelin Tytöt - three-time mandolin champion Heikki Lahti, with accordion and bass; there's a strong Finnish tradition of mandolin playing in a style is sometimes reminiscent of balalaika playing in the use of tremolo, but not so flashy, and using tunes which occasionally evoke echoes of English country dance - Pirnales; much more progressive of late in accompaniments to traditional tunes, with offset rhythms, cunning chording and jazz interpolations, as well as the almost shouted vocals also purveyed by other young Finnish groups such as Koinurit and Värttinä - Salamakannel (whose 2 fine albums were reviewed in an earlier Folk Roots) contributing 2 tunes including the very pretty Metsämarssi - able kantele player & singer Minna Raskinen, who, particularly when playing as here with guitar & bass shows the American old-timey connection also evident in Salamakannel's work; Scandinavian & northern European immigrant music had its influence in north America, (for example, in fiddle styles and the Appalachian dulcimer) so there's a natural flow the other way back to the old countries - and Ottopasuuna, whose members often perform American & Irish music, here play 2 Finnish tunes and one Swedish (by Groupa's fiddler Mats Edén).

     Like Heikki Lahti, Seppo Sillanpää is a leading exponent of Finnish mandolin (as well as fiddle, guitar, viola & 9-string kantele); his last album stuck largely to Finnish material, but on Lamentarola he makes more connections with the USA - there are American stringband and Jewish music influences in his own compositions and in the group sound (which includes banjo, button accordion, more mandolins and bass), together with Finnish traditional tunes and, naturally, a tango.

     When I saw Koinurit live, and going down like local heroes, at Kaustinen festival I didn't realise it was actually a definite group line-up; its members, particularly the universal fiddler Arto Järvelä, had been visible in so many other ensembles in the course of a few days at Kaustinen, including Salamakannel, JPP and Niekku. The results of such involvement show on Yllätyspaartit, the debut album, which moves between the low-profile subtlety of much Finnish traditional music and the rough energy of the new wave of young groups. The recording, like the performances, is relaxed, occasionally even approximate, but alive with energy and understated wit. I don't suppose the sessions took long; though there's little in the way of pyrotechnics, these people are at home with what they're doing.

     More consciously seeking the stream of tradition in Finno-Ugric music, because that's what it's paid by government grant to do, is Tallari. In some countries such funding could be deeply suspect, and I confess I didn't rush to see them at Kaustinen, but then found that the group was put together by the excellent Kansanmusiikki-Instituutti (Finland's national folk-music institute, based in Kaustinen and with Salamakannel's Hannu Saha as director). The group travels round the country, reminding its scattered inhabitants of Finnish musical traditions. Made for 1990, the Year of Finno-Ugrian folk music, the album Lunastettava Neito features music from peoples in that linguistic group including Karelia, Hungary, the Votyak and Mari peoples (still in what's left of the Soviet Union), as well as items from Elias Lönnrot's Finnish collection Kanteletar and Sámi yoik songs from guest singer Wimme Saari from Finnish Lapland. One might expect something worthy, national-dressed and dull, but the music turns out continuously interesting and varied, with fine arrangements, playing and singing. Nor is it the safe, traditional hard-line one might expect; the accompaniment to Saari's haunting singing of the yoik Itsetunnon Näkymä - Iesdovddu Oainnus is powerful, mysterious and modern, and well worth the attention of anyone intrigued by Mari Boine Persen's work; Psalm 22 is given a richly harmonised arrangement of fiddles, 5-string kantele and harmonium, a texture continued and enriched by balalaika-style mandolin tremolo and bass in the final track, Sydämestäni Rakastan, on which singer Liisa Matveinen gives a considerably emotional performance.

© 1992 Andrew Cronshaw