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Reviews

Loituma — Things of Beauty (Loituma)
(NorthSide 6010, 1995/2006, CD)

by Mike McLatchey, Published 1999-01-01

Things of Beauty (Loituma) Cover art

This is an incredibly apt title for an album — certainly Loituma has created an album full of things of sorrowful, melancholy, and transcendent beauty. Loituma's fragile folk sounds bring almost Campbell-esque archetypal images to mind, and stir up, at least for me, a longing for something fleeting and transient. It is rare that musicians can evoke such intense longing in their songs, and while the group, a quartet of vocals and stringed instruments known as kanteles, is instrumentally sparse, their music is powerful and intense in the invocation of an ancient era. I would assume that much of the music is traditional, and most of it is so hauntingly beautiful that it is almost trance inducing. The female vocals are most prominent here, and as in many Scandinavian folk ensembles, the vocals are unequivocally gorgeous. Except for the odd track here and there, the music is very somber overall, until the latter half of the album in which "Ieva's Polkka" finishes the album on a happier and near out-of-place note (Incidentally this song was a massive radio hit in Finland). A tremendously beautiful album, so strong it's guaranteed to evoke an emotional response.

Filed under: Reissues, Issue 16, 2006 releases, 1995 recordings

Related artist(s): Loituma

 

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