At the Fantasy Folk evening in Savoy, folk music met fantasy worlds

Fantasy Folk at the Savoy Theatre. Maija Kauhanen’s Ignes Fatui and Venla Ilona Blomin’s Nevrak.

Finnish folk music began to reach out from its roots to talk with the present in the early 1990s at the latest, when Värttinä published Oi Dai – album.

Since then, folk music has ventured further and further afield and gained new vitality from it. For example Kimmo Pohjonen along with the accordion has taken it around the world.

In a way, you can think that the two performers of Savoy’s Fantasy Folk evening represent a new phase. Maija Kauhanen and Venla Ilona Blom performed their new music.

Kauhanen, an award-winning kantele player, has been part of many ensembles. Now he premiered Ignore the fires -his works. The name means flash fire.

A bucket came on stage waving some kind of light stick. He also played from the traditional deck with a bow and used a mug as a slide. The wordless song was a bit reminiscent of a song. In addition, there were percussion instruments and electronic bass guitar.

The real specialty was the light kantel, which was made by the musician’s father and the kantel builder Kari Kauhanen and sound and lighting technician Pekko Mustonen.

The box packed in a transparent box flashed colored lights to the rhythm of the music. When Kauhanen used it as a percussion instrument, the colored lights literally flashed.

Playing with colors and lights was complemented by disco make-up on the face. The performance was pretty and witty, but the impression was inevitably a bit of new age nonsense.

Venla Ilona Blomin Kauhanen was one of the three background singers in the nine-piece band. The band also included a string trio, percussionists and keyboard players, and a player of the guitele, i.e. a combination of guitar and kantele. Timo Saari danced in a few numbers.

The fantasy mentioned in the title of the evening was emphasized by the costumes. Both Kauhanen’s and Blom’s performance outfits could have been borrowed Björk’s of clothing.

In every way, Blom’s performance resembled pop divas more than folk musicians. It had great theatrical antics. Even the gurgling of water between songs was carefully groomed as part of the performance.

The music was mainly distinguished from pop by the slow tempo. There was little folk music in it. Blom sang one song in Finnish, otherwise the whole show was in English.

Theatricality also highlighted the opening texts projected on the background, where Blom introduced his new album Nevrakin as the place of the name in his northernmost subconscious. According to Vuola’s introduction, the stories of the songs came from different parts of the world, from Kathmandu to Lofoten.

There were more texts between the songs, also when read aloud. In the songs, you don’t necessarily pay attention to the clichés, but in the lyrics, queens, witches and ghost ships caught your eye. Nevrakin the fantasy world was like a fairytale castle built for 13-year-olds.

Technically, the show was excellent. Blom, known from the band Tuuletar, has a wonderful, clear voice, which was underlined by the wordless singing as an extra heard Ennio Morricone in film composition Once Upon a Time in the West. The jogging song was the highlight of the whole evening.

Kauhanen and Blom are skilled musicians who fit together and under the fantasy title. And on the basis of folk music, of course, you can build such fluffy entertainment tunes. Such people could find a use in Eurovision, for example.