Hundinuiaõis/Bulrush Bloom

From Estonia, Eva Väljaots plays the kannel, one of the plucked zither-like instruments shared by the Finno-Ugric cultures around the Baltic Sea. She recently debuted this album at Viljandi Folk Music Festival – the biggest in Estonia.

Bulrushes are a metaphor and the ten original tracks here represent different aspects of the plant and its characteristics. On ‘Wings’, birds enter the picture, as she bows the instrument and sings some very realistic birdcalls. Väljaots uses several different instruments, some plucked, some strummed, presumably with different numbers of strings and various shapes, although she doesn’t go into details on the press release. The kannel, like the Finnish kantele, encourages an intimate and introspective world, which this music certainly inhabits. But that doesn’t imply any limit to Väljaots’ imagination. On the album she includes her own drawings, which also animate her live performances. A very coherent concept.