Tautumeitas - s/t [2018]

Artist: Tautumeitas

Title: Tautumeitas

Genre: Folk, World Music

Country: Latvia
Year: 2018

Track List:

1. Intro
2. Sadziedami
3. Pāde
4. Raganu nakts
5. Vainagu deja
6. Bērziņš
7. Pelīte
8. Raudi raudi
9. Sastdine
10. Ūgas
11. Bārainīte
12. Aiz azara
13. Dai citas meitas

If I understand correctly, Līgo is the Latvian equivalent of the Midsummer Eve (and it's as much of a major holiday there as it is in Nordic countries), and Raganu nakts (literally "witching night") is the night before it, being an equivalent to our Kupala night (although it's now celebrated on 7th of July here). Anyway, "Raganu nakts" is also the song about Līgo performed by an all-female folk band Tautumeitas which made them famous on YouTube:

This clip makes me want to participate in one of those Midsummer celebrations in my future travels (so far I've been only to the Kupala night celebration at the lake Svetloyar last year, but the weather was terrible). The whole debut album by Tautumeitas is worth checking out as well (my personal favourite track is "Aiz azara"). Out of everything that was posted on my blog before, stylistically it resembles Oyme more than anything else:

UUTAi - "Live Jew's Harp" [2013]

Artist: UUTAi

Title: Live Jew's Harp

Genre: Folk, New Age

Country: Russia (Yakutia)

Release date: 2013

Track List:

1. Silence Breath
2. Sky Songs
3. Races
4. Water Games
5. The Lunar Shaman
6. Legend About Ancient Fights
7. Races (Strana 03 rmx)

After posting Lovozero on here, I thought it'd wouldn't hurt to post Uutai too. Uutai plays Yakutian khomus, an instrument which for some unknown reason is commonly called "Jew's harp" in English, although it doesn't have anything to do with Jews and traditional Jewish music. There's some confusion about her real name: according to the cover art of this album, it's Olga Podluzhnaya; however, Uutai refers to herself as Olena (an Ukrainian name, although Uutai says she doesn't have Ukrainian roots and doesn't know the language). Anyway, she's a very talented musician whose music certainly should be recorded to anyone who's into Siberian shamanic folk (like the solo works of Veronika Oshulik).

Uutai became widely known after the video of one of her performances ("Siberian shaman lady") went viral on Youtube, and it's well deserved - her performance was amazing, and her vocal abilites (including the ability to imitate animal sounds) are great. Funny enough, a lot of people in the comments say that she has very beautiful armpits - that'd be one of the most original compliments I've heard of :)

After the success of this video, she performed at a lot of shows in various countries, but in come cases her music wasn't met well (understandable, because her style is too weird and exotic for an unexperienced listener). However, her performance on Britain's Got Talent apparently was quite successful:

Lovozero - "Zagovory" [2015]

Artist: Lovozero

Title: Zagovory

Genre: Ambient, Folktronica

Country: Russia

Release date: 2015

Track List:

1. Raspevy
2. Travy
3. Oberegy
4. Zagovory
5. Domoi

This project caught my attention because it's named after one of the biggest lakes in the European part of Russian Arctic and the centre of Kildin Sami culture in Russia.  With such a name, it just don't have the right to be bad, and this EP indeed turned out to be pretty interesting.

Lovozero is an alias of Anastasia Tolchneva, who mixes the authentic folk music of the Russian North (the ethnocultural region that I absolutely love) with the ambient/new age electronica - basically, the Northern Russian folk tradition adapted for the modern hipster's taste. According to Anastasia: "It is not about cultural codes. These compositions are my intuitive responses to chaotic life scenarios". The "Zagovory" EP, described as "spells and electrical roundelays", is her most accessible release (at least compared to the subsequient full-length album "Moroka", which is much more experimental). Very beautiful music, just like the nature of the region where that folk tradition comes from. Enjoy:

Oyme - "Horol Ebel" (music video)

Oyme is one of the few bands whose news I follow very closely. They're an unique all-female project whose mission is to collect the authentic folk music of Finno-Ugric minorities of Russia (the cultures unfourtunately very few people care about), and to make its modern interpretations. However, this new song and music video is based on the pre-Islamic folklore of the Nakh-Dagestani (more precisely, Avar) people:

The leading voice of Oyme, Ezhevika Spirkina, is a professional ethnomusicologist that's very happy to answer any question about the cultures she studies. Last year she spent quite a lot of time and efforts to gather the obscure musical folklore of rural parts of Dagestan (she met with the members of Inoe, among others), and the first results you can see in the video above. The name of the song and video translates to "Mother of Wind", which is a reference to a pre-Islamic Avar deity.

It should be noted, though, that this work got a lot of flak from both the radical nationalist elements among the Finno-Ugric peoples (which perceived an interest in a non-FU culture, especially a Muslim one, as a betrayal, although being interested in different cultures is a crucially important part of being a good ethnographer), and some strictly religious people in Dagestan which didn't take well the perceived pagan connotations of the video (even if Ezhevika explicitly stated that's now what the video is about). Some of them also didn't like her attire - which is surely un-Islamic, and doesn't need to be (needless to say she's also a model with a very beautiful figure, and she has every right to be proud of it).

The band themselves view the "Horol Ebel" video as a multi-layered work, which is, among other things, a social project that concerns the cultural heritage of humanity transcending the national/ethnic and religious boundaries. The video was filmed in Gamsutl, a historical village in the mountainous rural Dagestan, which is mostly abandoned and ruined by now. Oyme expresses hope for the minor languages to live on, and the heritage monuments like Gamsutl, or Notre-Dame de Paris, or the Dormition Church in Karelia, to be restored.

Feel free to share the video anywhere you want.

Heli Keinonen ‎- "Ajettih Da Tšiganaiset" [1966]

Artist: Heli Keinonen

Title: Ajettih Da Tšiganaiset 7''

Genre: Folk, Singer-Songwriter

Country: Finland

Release date: 1966

Track List:

1. Ajettih Da Tšiganaiset
2. Ruskie Neitšyt, Valgie Neitšyt

I found out about Heli Keinonen because of Kriminaaliset Metsänhaltijat,who sampled one of her songs on their album "Valkoinen Terrori". There's next to no information about her in English, but I managed to find some info in Finnish and Russian - not much anyway, but enough to conclude that she was and still is an outstanding and controversial person.

So, Heli Keinonen was born April 5th, 1943 in Joensuu, Finland, and became famous in mid-1960s as a singer of traditional Karelian songs. In particular, the second song off this 7'' vinyl became a big hit that's still performed by many folk singers in Finland. She released a few more 7'' singles during the second half of 1960s, but they weren't as successful as this one. Later in 1970s, she became involved in radical politics (if I understood the Finnish sources correctly, it happened after she married some well-known undergrond writer and activist) and started to sing political songs, the best known of which is "Kuolemaantuomitun Hyvästijättö" - the one that was used by KM on "Valkoinen Terrori". During the 1980s, she worked in Sudan where she eventually decided to convert to Islam, although sources say that she never followed the Islamic dress code and generally didn't take it too seriously. As of late 2009, she was teaching Arabic language in Finland, although she's most likely retired by now.

Regardless of some questionable life choices, this 7'' shows that she certainly was a good singer. Here's one more Karelian folk song (according to the description, it's about a girl and a boy meeting at well) performed by Heli live on YLE TV in 1967. The melody reminds me of some Russian and ukrainian folk songs, and the language sounds like Finnish with slightly different phonetics and some random Russian words thrown in:

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Dadhikra - "Vadul Odulnye Karawaalpe (Folktales Of The Yukaghir People)" [2015]

Artist: Dadhikra

Title: Vadul Odulnye Karawaalpe (Folktales Of The Yukaghir People)

Genre: Ritual Ambient, Field Recordings

Country: Russia

Release date: 2015

Track List:

1. Dorbu
2. Longdol Circular Dance
3. Loshiyaa, Loshiyaa, Ging, Ging, Ging
4. Song Of The White Spirits Of The Light Way

I was browsing the Bandcamp page of one St. Petersburg-based label specialized in underground industrial and noise, and, to my surprise, found this:

"This work is based on the folktales of small Siberian nation - Yukaghirs. Dadhikra used the recordings of the karawaalpe Yukaghir folktales and traditional musical instruments: paydii, mumżerul, paydunube saal, niedjek chomuolben, čunžia, pukil’, łerkejeŋ, jerejepajdii, jonśe, wanna ajanaaŋ, pukol’urd’źe".

Since there's not much information about Yukaghir traditional music, apart from some recordings made during USSR times, this release is fairly unique. However, it's not your typical folk music album, and it's not easy to get into (I'd say it fits right in the catalogue of an industrial/noise label). Moreover, there's not much actual music: out of 4 tracks, two are spoken word recitals of folk tales (in Russian, but the words are not always easily decipherable). Overall, I'd recommend it to those who's into ritual music or just seeking something really weird, and if you're searching for more listenable Yukaghir-related material, the pop songs by Irina Duskulova are for you (she was thankful to me by posting her songs on here, by the way).

And speaking about the Yukaghir culture in general... well, it's considered to be moribund by many, and was considered to be so 100 years ago, yet it's still here and apparently isn't going anywhere (and I surely hope it won't!) There's something about this culture that makes it stand out of the other similar cultures of the Arctic, and some aspects of it seem be really ancient, perhaps going back in time as far as to the Mesolithic. It's also worth being mentioned that Yugaghirs have suprisingly many people with literal talent for such a small-numbered ethnic group, and they even are one of the very few cultures to independently develop a writing system - albeit a very specialized pictographic one (used mostly for writing love letters and letters of respect, as manyYukaghirs are too shy for telling such things openly), but still.

V/A - "Finnish Snow-Walks and Dances" [2005]

Artist: (various)

Title: Finnish Snow-Walks and Dances

Genre: Folk, WTF?

Country: Finland

Release date: 2005

Track List:

1. Kalli Kaksi - Porotanssii, Traditionaal
2. Kalli Kaksi - Lumiympyräkävely
3. Päiva Rumalainen - Saippuakauppias
4. Onnellinen Hampurilainen - Kantele Rekiretki
5. Endru Krellainen & Onnellinen Hampurilainen - Hiprakkainen Lumihiutale Valssi
6. Kalli Kaksi & Hannu Elenius - Vuoren Villit
7. Neito Kiharatukka - Unelma Valssi Remixi
8. Aural Chamber Music Orchestra - Tytönhamepilvet
9. Aili & Annikki Saari - Lumilaulu (Kansanlaulu)
10. Leikata ja Liimata - Dark Cough
11. Porokierros - Joen Ylitys
12. Soolo Ennikki - Talvitango

Found this in the same blog where I found that 7'' by Zeitlich Vergelter. It caught my attention not only by being a recording of Finno-Ugric folk music, but also because it had a cat on its cover :) While I initially expected it to be tradtional folk, some tracks (but by no means all) indeed turned out to be like this. For the most part, however, this compilation sounds really weird, rather close to percussion industrial/noise than folk. Then I decided to read the release notes and found out that it's a collection of field recordings, some of which indeed were supposed to sound like white noise:

"CD Feature/ "Finnish Snow-Walks and Dances" Captures the "poetic universe of snow". I bet you didn’t know that there is a Finish tradition called "Snow Walking", intended to calm the mind. It harks all the way back to the national epos, the Kalevala, which speaks explicitely of "scooping rhe songs out of the frost" and of "unlocking the box of tales". But don’t worry – not many other people have heard of it, either. The very informative text, which accompanies this release, which can either be bought as a regular CD or a luxuriously packaged, truly beautiful LP (have I made amply clear, which one I prefer?), therefore serves to outline the aims of the project: To present the entire spectrum of snow music, from its folk roots to its present forms, to capture the "poetic universe of snow" and to "mark its entry into the 21st Century". Based on the field recordings made by the famous Sisukas Poronainen from the renowned "Kansanmusiikin Instituutti"(which, I am sure, I need not explain any further), Gabi Schaffner (who has already held publich lectures on the subject) has taken on the task of sifting through the material, selecting the most representative cuts and of researching the scene for assorted genres, such as "Lumi Core" (Snow Core) and acts from the experimental scene, who are carrying on the traditions. She has found some wonderful music and a fair amount of equally fascinating stories...

Japanese influences have led to a widespread enthusiasm for metal and noise music in Finland, resulting in specifically Finnish forms of white noise music, known as Lumi Core (Snow Core) and it’s twin-music Lumi Noise (Snow Noise) L-Core tracks must contain more than fifty percent of original snow recordings. This quota is often surmounted, as the musicians dedicate long hours of work to sampling, collecting and editing of white noises. Additional samples should be as authentic and raw as the conditions allow for. L-Core and -Noise artists share a vivid interest in ethno-type field recordings and bio-acoustics which link their music back to the older traditions of snow music. At the same time, a new type of performance art has evolved, which clearly refers to the shamanistic rituals of the old Finnish tribes..."

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Loituma - "Kuutamolla" [1998]

Artist: Loituma

Title: Kuutamolla

Genre: Folk

Country: Finland
Year: 1998

Track List:

1. Hiekkarantakuhertelua
2. Tähden lentäessä
3. Kultaansa kuuleva
4. Laulu laiskana pitävi
5. Nuustielle
6. Utu
7. Inttäjäispolska
8. Menuetti
9. Mikaelin kirkonkellot
10. Kuutamolla kahden
11. Salaisia kyyneleitä

In my previous entry, I mentioned Loituma in the context of being an "one-hit wonder", due to their well-known song "Ievan Polkka" (often misspelled as "Levan Polkka" or "Leva's Polka") that became an internet meme in the 2000s. A lot of people got an unfortunate perception of Loituma being a joke band because of that song, which is completely untrue. Actually, Loituma were one of the best 90's nordic folk collectives, and they have released two full-length albums before the "Ievan Polkka" single.

Here's one of these albums, released in 1998. If you expect to hear danceable a-capella songs like "Ievan Polkka" on there, you're going to be disappointed - but it's strongly recommended if you like melancholic acoustic folk (without the prefix "neo-") with female vocals, and especially if you enjoy the sound of kantele. The best track on "Kuutamolla" in my opinion is "Nuustielle", but the rest of the album is nice too, especially two last tracks. Visit the comment section of this excellent blog for the music.