For Your Listening Pleasure

Thought I would suggest more cool music (atleast to me anyway) that someone out there might find interesting. This is a little more "out there" compared to the last album I suggested. It is by a Scandinavian group called Hedningarna (in Swedish, it means "heathens" because a friend felt that their music sounded wild and heathen).
The group started in the late '80's as a traditional trio -- fiddle, Jew's harp, lute, hurdy gurdy, nickylharpa, that sort of thing -- and then evolved into a five piece after adding two Finnish vocalists. It gave a whole new dimension to their primal ancient sound, which began incorporating modern sounds with ancient ones. The arrangments became angular and quirky and sometimes very bizarre.
In 1999, they released what I consider to be their best work, Karelia Visa. While it still retained the old-meets-new qualities it seemed to focus much more on the old. The band travelled to Karelia, a part of Russia that had once belonged to Finland but was incorporated into the Soviet Union after World War II. It was finally re-opened to outsiders in the late '90's with the fall of Communism. Hedningarna's vocal traditions were born in this region, for the most part, and they wanted to go back and explore the roots of what they were experimenting with all along. The result is a downhome, warm, mature album.
Yes, all the vocals are in Finnish (and are mostly based on traditional folk songs) but the vocal work of Sanna Kurki-Suonio and Anita Lehtola is hypnotic, fierce, and sometimes avant-garde. If you are looking for a different experience, I highly suggest this disc. For me, there is nary a bad track to be found.

KARELIA VISA -- Hedningarna
Released: 1999 (in America, on Northside Records)
Hot tracks: Metsän Tytto (Forest Maiden); Ukkonen(Thunder God); Neidon Laulu(Song Of A Maiden); Viima; Alkusanat.