Seleniko

VÄRTTINÄ: "Seleniko" (Green Linnet)

SITTING across the lisping Gulf of Bothnia (think about it) from Sweden, Finland meant two things to me before Värttinä reared their head - Helsinki and Sibelius. (I was going to mention their repeated affinity for null points at the Eurovision but then that's nothing to be ashamed of, is it?)

Värttinä are a nine-piece group of traditional musicians, who as well as playing the expected fiddle, bouzouki, and sundry accordions, boast no less than four female vocalists, a domra and a kantele - or so the sleevenotes tell me.

The sound is essentially instrumental with fiddle and accordion conspiring to couple in a manner familiar to anyone who's been near a session in the last decade. To this basic duo is added the guitar and tin whistle in a plethora of melodies that swing from straightforward time-signatures to ones far too frantic and complex for the raw, untrained ear (though the trusty notes wow me with details of such exotica as 13/8 rhythms).

And then there are the voices. Initially suggestive of oriental harmonies, out of Beijing (or one of Zhang Yimou's cinematic masterpieces), they're full of chinks and tail-end quirks that sound like mini-gasps until you attune to the miniscule rise in pitch out of nowhere.

Harsher than what we are used to, the four female vocals in unison are a far cry from their Irish equivalent. Then again, with acres of Finnish consonants jostling for position, it's hardly surprising that their sound is less like four-ply tissue paper and more like two-ply baking parchment. And by the fourth or fifth song, the two-ply option is steadily gaining ground in my all-too-crowded eardrums.

Another surprise is the lyrical similarity between their and our traditions. Wedding tunes, spinster tunes, unrequited love tunes and ballads that'd melt the snow off Lapland, their days have been much the same as ours, though they could do with a native translator: "Fire up, young man's heart/I will put a flame on your hips"! How's that for erotica?

Madonna'd kill for it.

Siobhan Long