Varttina

Today's Värttinä is a long way, but also just a short stroll, from the band that began in 1983. The young girls who began the group in Karelia, reciting old poems and singing the traditional songs, have all grown up.

Many have moved on, and been replaced, so that the original 21-piece lineup has slimmed down to a mere ten, with just four singers and their trademark high, piercing harmonies, backed by a crack team of instrumentalists. They've become the international band name in Finnish folk-rock.

The big change came in 1989. At that point, with the original members dispersing, it seemed that the band might end. Founder Sari Kaasinen drafted in new members.

"We began practicing in November ‘89, and people were calling Sari all the time, wanting to book Värttinä in Karelia," recalled fiddler Kari Reiman. "So, in March ‘90, when we did our first gig - which was doing Värttinä's gigs - we were still going to change the name. But more and more gigs kept coming, and the name just stayed."

With a harder, more refined sound, the band kept winning fans. Oi Dai sold well in 1991, and a year later Seleniko took them over the top at home when a single, "Kyla Vuotti Uutta Kuuta," became a surprise hit at home.

"Everyone was playing loud and all the time. It was a lot of noise, and that's been a tradition with the band."

"It was amazing," laughed singer Kirsi Kähkönen. "Before that we'd been playing for a long time, and it was just a normal thing to sing those songs, and we had a history behind us. And suddenly we were a big hit - it was a very strange feeling. Earlier, we'd never thought ‘Oh, this place is sold out already and there are big lines.' It became normal, but weird."

"It was great," agreed Reiman. "We toured around Finland all the time. We'd hear the radio ‘Now we're number three...' and everyone was cheering. But it wasn't a very long period in the band's history. It was just the beginning. We'd just learned to do the songs. When that Värttinä boom was over, the feeling was that was when we started to do music. But it gave us opportunities no other Finnish folk band had, because everybody was taking us seriously and the record company was very kind, and we could say what we wanted to record, and things like that. Without that success I don't know if we'd exist in this form. And it was a way to get some gigs outside Finland. I think, with world music, you first have to have some success in your own country, otherwise it's very difficult."

It did propel the band onto the international stage, and they consolidated their position with Aitara, before releasing the more poppish, and more obviously commercial Kokko in 1996.

"It definitely sounds more poppy," admitted Kähkönen. "But if you change the sequence of the songs, the more pop songs are at the beginning of the album. And the sound of the singing is more pop."

But to Reiman "there was nothing different from normal. The melodies are even more traditional to me. What makes it poppy is probably the sound. The vocals were overdubbed many times, and we mixed different sounds together. We'd have the normal Värttinä powerful and hard voices, and over that we recorded some whispering voices, and the final vocal sound was like pop music.When we do those songs at gigs, no one tells us they're too poppy. But I maybe hear the result a mixture of that. It's a technique most of the pop singers use. Also, there's a strong, poppy backbeat to the drums on the record. The music itself isn't different, just the production."

The critics weren't thrilled by the change of direction, and when Vihma appeared two years later, it brought the sound of a revitalized Värttinä, remarkable considering the members were still just in their late 20s.

Ilmatar, their latest album, finally released in the U.S. after being in limbo due to the closure of Wicklow Records, unconsciously completes a trilogy, as they discovered when "Kari found a traditional poem which include Kokko, Vihma, and Ilmatar. So it happened in a funny way."

It's their most mature release, with a great deal more space in the songs.

"When we began working on Ilmatar, we just had the idea that the band wasn't going to play so much," recalled Reiman. "In the beginning we didn't have a drummer, and we played gigs without amplification, so everyone was playing loud and all the time. It was a lot of noise, and that's been a tradition with the band, and we decided not to play so much, and that came out as the goddess of air."

And now they're already looking ahead to their next release, a live album.

"We've been thinking about it," said Kähkönen. "It's a very good idea, because many people like we're better live than on album. There's more energy when we're on stage, but in a musical way the albums are better. Still, we've been thinking of a live album for a long time, and maybe it's time to make it, because our singing and playing is getting more and more together. We're also doing a book, with stories of our traveling, our history, notes, everything together."

Varttina

"Everyone was playing loud and all the time. It was a lot of noise, and that's been a tradition with the band."

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