FOLK AESTHETIC 1996-2006

You don't expect very much from a compilation featuring rare and unrealeased material, if the band in question already isn't important to you, do you? I had heard just one studio album by this Finnish folk-rock group, and while I certanly enjoyed some tracks, I thought on the long run they always sound too much the same for wider appreciation. And why go through listening rarities when there are proper albums waiting to be heard? Well, I was wrong. This is amazing three hours of dark and atmospheric Prog Folk and I'm very glad I borrowed it (even if I first felt frustrated when I tried to read the track titles and other texts, all printed with tiny, old-fashioned hard-to-read fonts).

Rather than being a fan-oriented thing, a place to find throwaway material that didn't make it to the albums, this is an ambitious large-scale document of the band's ten-year history. I would have wished for some kind of discographic information to better see how this all relates to the existing output, but that's a minor fault. This is full of spellbinding progressive folk, often in a very slow tempo, and although TENHI's music isn't very progressive (in a symphonic sense), it seems that the long tracks - roughly ten minutes - are the finest. I'm not getting into details, but I guarantee that if you have heard something by this band and have enjoyed it, this is definitely worth listening.

PS. Tenhi is said to mean the village elder.