KYTÄJÄ

This record is a result of two musician's work, Jarno Alho and Janne Lastumäki, with a little help from their friends on the wind sections. Album covers give a warm, homemade and sincere feeling, which describes the music concealed within them perfectly.

The songs form some kind of tale of a day at the countryside, starting from the dawn of early summer or late spring with birds singing. A comparison for this record could be either Uzva's "Tammikuinen Tammela" or Vitkaste's "Lestinjoki", a pleasant jazzy, folky and slightly psychedelic theme album from a Finnish everyday life experience. Though I would change their Zappa influences here to 1960's / 1970's Pink Floyd. Also here are maybe little less compositional elements than with them group mentioned (but present though, so not toally abstract noodling here). Finnish folk music elements blend with mellow jazz rock and psychedelic elements. Everything seems to be clam, mellow, without hurry... which is pleasant to counterbalance the hectic urban life. The trip continues with easy and jazzy acoustic guitars delivering nice tender groove and laid back euphoric loveliness. The themes build up song schemes which are then exploited and studied with different instruments, providing much space for playing. Songs flow freely towards little more experimental drum & guitar impressions, painting up a picture of a great wide lakeside, and opening to easy mellow jazz again, then disappearing to open musical space. After this we get a pleasant, nostalgic bluesy song, one very happy slow song containing also some electric guitar soloing, and the album closes to minor keyboard driven slow jazzy blues (time to go sleep children...).

So, the songs form a solid album, pleasant to listen from start to end without pauses, and also there doesn't seem to be any weak tracks included in my opinion. If you like jazzy folk prog, or wish to get relaxed when listening to a record, try this one.