Jaakko Laitinen & Väärä Raha
Lapland is just next door to Balkan
Even Finland is finally waking up to the sheer excellence of Balkan music. Bands such as Fanfare Cioccârlia have turned masses wild at the Rento Stage at Ilosaarirock Festival, mandolins and trombones have found their way to hiphop, and clubs specialising in Balkan rhythms are attracting capacity crowds night in, night out. Enter Jaakko Laitinen & Väärä Raha that serves the hottest soup of the moment with its own special garnishments. When the lasts blasts of Väärä Raha's debut album have died out, you can’t help but wonder: why on earth has no-one had the guts to put out material like this before? The marriage of Balkan beats to the Finnish tradition of melancholic schlagers and Russian romances sounds effortless like, well, made in heaven.
According to the band itself, the genre in question is "Lapland Balkan", which, undeniably, describes well the sort of joyful mayhem they are making. Those who have witnessed Jaakko Laitinen & Väärä Raha play live know that they can lift any venue off the ground and send it about 2,000 km down south, to a universe where trivialities such as the exact number of your Facebook friends or Nokia's second quarter results have no importance whatsoever. What matters is whether or not the trip to a neighbouring village to buy a bottle of two of moonshine will be a successful one, and whether or not today is a good day to get out of the gutter and stop feeling sorry for your lost love. And whatever the weather, it always allows some shimmying around, doesn't it?
