MP3: Värttinä - Eerama
We're going to have ourselves a theme with this week's mp3 posts and that theme is folk music. I know some of you are probably rolling your eyes at the thought, but I think that learning to appreciate Nordic folk traditions is an important part of understanding what makes Scandinavian music unique. It's amazing how much of it is carried through to other genres too, both in the lyrics and the melodies.
Today's song comes to us from Värttinä, Finland's most well-known folk group. The band has existed in some form or another since 1983 and changed members and labels many times since, but has always retained the same musical vision. Finnish folk is often based on the poems and songs of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic. The music can be similar to a lot of other Eastern European folk, but it's the amazing vocal harmonies that make them special and that's what I'm going to spotlight today with the a capella piece "Eerama". The song is from the group's latest album "Miero", their first for Peter Gabriel's renown Real World label. Some of you might recognize that the sound isn't too far off from Bulgarian vocal music and you'd be right, but it's the incredibly dark and twisted lyrics that separate the Finns from the rest. Just check out the words for "Synti/The sin" in which the narrator wishes her enemies to be cursed with lizard-foetuses. See what I mean? Folk music can be cool.
Värttinä - Eerama