Iki
Värttinä's previous album,Ilmatar, was runic, dark, and chillingly evocative, a masterpiece of latter-day trad-pop. Ever since, fans of this female-led Karelian ensemble have been eagerly anticipating their next effort while half-expecting a let-down. Well, the wait is over, and the follow-up, created in the wake of still more personnel changes, is surprisingly un-fussy, almost bar-band folkloric. The legendary women vocalists are now a trio instead of a quartet. They are heard solo and combined, backed by acoustic accordion, fiddles, flutes, guitars, drums, and kantele (Finland's zither-like national instrument,) the whole anchored by a simple, prominent bass. Their trademark speed-singing is sparingly deployed and the open-faced, limpid harmonies seldom become unsettling or shrill. The singers come across like a chance gathering of sharp-tongued, kindly village gossips on a sunny bench. They are nowhere near so occult or fate-driven as we've been led to believe--not in broad daylight, anyway.-- Christina Roden