Tango Tango de Norte a Sur

We hear lots of rumours about Finland’s tango obsession but rarely get to hear its music. This innovative release features three Finnish female artists – singer Kukka-Maaria Ahonen, accordionist Johanna Juhola and pianist Mika Viljamaa – out to prove not only that Finland has its own independent tango tradition but also that it can reconnect with the Buenos Aires sound and produce something surprising. The trio write their own songs, but for this project recruited Horacio Ferrer, the celebrated Argentinian tango songwriter, poet and librettist to narrate three voiceovers. The other songs employ lyrics by Argentinian poet Alfonsina Storni and unknown Finnish Bolivian poet Siboné Oroza.

What Finland seems to be contributing to tango, on this evidence, is a technically adept but overwrought brand of the music, with a Hammer horror treatment of the vocals. The most highly-strung of Argentina’s divas (or divos, for there are plenty of those) could never match Ahonen for histrionic excess. The Valkyric eroticism is all her own. Mix the stuttering, high-pitched wailing with the Finno-Spanish delivery and the effect is akin to having your eardrums French-kissed by a tongue covered in broken glass. This record might well be a vernacular masterpiece that will delight the home market but this particular variety of sub– Arctic tango doesn’t travel well at all.