73 f


Despite the high quality of their dance melodies, the outstanding track is a slow melody, Lammig An Noz, written by Régis. Each member takes their turn to lead and accompany on what is a hugely enjoyable piece that stands out from a very enjoyable album.


www.keltiamusique.com – UK distribut- ed by Discovery: www.discovery-records.com


Vic Smith PØRTNERS KOMPLOT


Oldefar På Tour GO’ Danish Folk Music GO 0410


PHØNIX 20 GO’ Danish Folk Music GO 0710


The four-piece known as Pørtners Komplot don’t surface often (this is their second full- length disc) but whenever they do it’s a joy. This CD is based in part on a music book that belonged to the great-grandfather of band member Johan Toftegaard Knudsen, but with a few diversions. They don’t try to recre- ate the old music. Instead they put their own spin on it. It’s still folk music without any doubt, and indubitably Danish. Boasting nine instruments between them, the quartet can inject different colours and textures. Throughout, the play is inspired and joyful (Obo-Polka genuinely floats) and there are moments of wonderful grace, like Genklang Af Nr. 70/ Novembervals. But they can also be completely manic, as on the hopsa På Bjer- get. That these are musicians familiar with dance music is beyond question. That they perform it all superbly and with plenty of joyful imagination is evident from a single listen. One of the brightest releases to come out of Denmark this year. www.gofolk.dk


www.myspace.com/portnerskomplot


From the relatively unknown to the old hands. Phønix were one of the first bands of the second Danish folk revival, starting life in 1990 and going through several line-ups since, with the most recent and excellent four-piece stable for several years now and producing some superb work, such as this col- lection’s lead-off track, the previously unre- leased Hvor Du Vender Dig. Several well- known Danish names have passed through the ranks, including fiddlers Harald Haugaard (in the very early days) and Kristine Heebøll, but two folk have anchored the group through its existence, accordeonist Jesper Vinther and clarinettist/ bass clarinettist Anja Præst Mikkelsen. There are several live tracks here, proof (if needed) that this is a band that can deliver the goods on stage, and with a real dynamism that’s the equal of any rock band (including obligatory percussion solo). As a primer, it’s an excellent guide to the group, who seem to be just getting into their stride after two decades.


www.gofolk.dk www.phonixfolk.dk Chris Nickson


JOHANNA JUHOLA Fantasiatango Texicalli TEXCD 106


TANGO-ORKESTERI UNTO


Kylmä Rakkaus – Cold Love ARC EUCD 2281


LEPISTÖ & LEHTI Helsinki Aito AICD 012


I’ve enthused about Finnish accordeonist Johanna Juhola a fair bit recently, in review- ing her albums with Timo Alakotila, Spon- taani Vire and Pekka Kuusisto and seeing her reliably classy and quirky live shows, most recently a very elegant set as a member of Tango-Orkesteri Unto at Helsinki’s big and delightful World Village free festival.


Fantasiatango, which took a while to arrive for review and has already spent a cou- ple of months climbing up the European World Music top 20, is her latest album, and it features several of her band involvements: the Johanna Juhola Trio (with guitarist Roope Aarnio plus programmer-producer Tuomas Norvio), the duo with pianist Milla Viljamaa, and the quartet Johanna Juhola Reaktori (with Norvio, Viljamaa and bassist Sara Puljula).


When Finnish accordeonists are men- tioned, the names Maria Kalaniemi and Kimmo Pohjonen always come up. Juhola shares with both of them a background at Sibelius Academy folk music department, and the influence of Finnish folk music in their work. But she takes her own path, combining her free-bass and chord-bass chromatic button accordeons, mouth-blown claviola, toy piano and glockenspiel with Norvio’s live electronics in surging melodic compositions in which one can hear the influence of soulful, direct Finnish and complex Argentinian tango, Timo Alakoti- la’s chord-shifting, lyrical writing style and other shapes of Finnish folk music. In Happi- humppa even the stolid populist polka-style humppa is alluded to, fused with Finland’s other de facto national dance tango and treat- ed to fine fiddling by classical master and elec- tro-fiddle doyen Pekka Kuusisto.


We’ve certainly come a long way since the time when accordeons seemed, to me anyway, to be brutal instruments of musical stodge, far removed from smartness or stylish- ness. (Actually – to qualify that –much of that avoidance-reaction was to piano-accordeons, though some fine perceptive players have also rescued them from the mire; button accordeons have in the main seemed some- what distanced from the stomach-Steinway’s excesses of bludgeoning insensitivity).


www.texicalli.net www.johannajuhola.net


Ah, and here, just as I was about to hit the deadline with that review, comes a new album by the aforementioned Tango- Orkesteri Unto that so elevated a sunny June Sunday lunchtime at World Village. Johanna Juhola, JPP’s Mauno Järvelä and Timo Alakoti- la on violin and piano, guitarist Petri Hakala and bassist Hannu Rantanen back singer Pirjo Aittomäki, a prime exponent of the warmly caressing strength and serenity that’s charac- teristic of female Finnish vocal sound.


Finnish tango is a different beast from its Argentinian precursors, and continues to evolve in a different direction, musically and in its lyrics of love and loss set against Fin- land’s wide landscape of endless green pine


King Sunny Adé


and birch taiga forests and lakes and its cli- mate of cold winters and short, intensely cel- ebrated and often hot summers.


Unto makes rich, swirling, beautifully played and gorgeously arranged music more evocative of ornate cafés and tea-dances than the rural dance-floors of Finnish folk tango, with something of the longing and passion of Portuguese fado; indeed the orchestra was formed to play at Expo’98 in Lisbon. This second CD brings a heart-rend- ingly seductive, surging set of material from Finnish composers and poets from the mid 20th century into the 21st, including Juhola, Alakotila and the doyen of Finnish tango composition from whom the band takes its name, Unto Mononen. www.arcmusic.co.uk


www.tangoorkesteriunto.com


The duo of Markku Lepistö’s 2-row dia- tonic and 5-row chromatic accordeons with Pekka Lehti’s double bass is a conceptually simple but satisfyingly full-sounding combi- nation that over the last couple of years has been one of Finland’s most world-gigging units, appearing at this year’s Womad UK. Lepistö has long been one of the most admired squeezers on the Finnish folk music scene, playing with among others Unto gui- tarist Petri Hakala, Pirnales, Progmatics and Värttinä, and Lehti has likewise been the bassist of choice with many bands. Helsinki is a set of eight compositions, including a tango, in which they draw out the tonal pos- sibilities of their instruments in intricate pacey numbers and lyrical slow pieces.


Finland’s national instrument, the kan-


tele, is currently being reborn, and the coun- try’s fiddlers are more skilful and inventive than ever, but playing that world-ubiquitous instrument the button accordeon Lepistö, Juhola, Pohjonen and Kalaniemi are proving major Finnish artistic exports.


www.aitorecords.com – distributed in the UK by Proper. http://lepistolehti.com


Andrew Cronshaw


KING SUNNY ADÉ & HIS AFRICAN BEATS Synchro System & Aura T-Bird 0034 CD


Pure sonic delight – the aural template struck up by Adé and producer Martin Meissonier was an immediate source of pleasure on his first world-release LP, Juju Music, in 1982. This double volume is albums two and three, and the familiar magic shines on. Odd to think that Island were hoping for Adé to be the suc- cessor to Bob Marley, for this could never have rivalled stadium roots reggae in commercial terms. Though Sunny Adé and his band live on stage had their storming moments, the records are quite different. They don’t whack you in the belly: this is a shifting, subtle soundscape where ghostly voices move into focus and out, the beat supplied by a deep hand-struck bass drum and restrained percus- sion. It’s like forest music, close to natural noises; vocals are close and friendly, keyboard riffs are understated, there’s air around the bass. It’s all undertow and hint, there is almost nothing obvious going on: and then you hear the great reverbed sweep of a Hawaiian gui- tar clanging out of the sky to which ‘Blimey!’ is the natural response. Instantly recognisable, a thing on its own.


Adé says in the liner notes that he start- ed by copying people like I.K.Dairo – again, a purveyor of rather mysterious music – but by the time these albums came out he was in nobody’s shadow. He’d already recorded lots of albums for the national market, he knew what he was up to. And he wasn’t going to over-westernise his music for anybody.


www.t-birdrecords.com – distributed by Cherry Red Records: www.cherryred.co.uk


Rick Sanders


Photo: Jak Kilby


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