Kiila - Tuota Tuota

Genre: Folk, Psychedelic, Experimental
Label: Fonal

My Space

Tuota tuota is the third full-length album by Kiila. Its songs were born of peaceful, focused work and intense rehearsals with friends, interspersed with sleep and mealtimes. The album features an eight-strong core line-up but, as always, the composition of the group varies effortlessly according to need. At this table, there is room for everyone.

As musical form, songs have always been important to Kiila, and consequently Tuota tuota develops around its songs. On the other hand, the album consists of many details: the sound is full, the web of instruments more varied and carefully orchestrated than before. It is unnecessary to separate the electronic from the non-electronic components. Different traditions of folk and pop music intermingle with electronic music and improvisation, tones and sound itself. This way, the album also poses questions about songs and songwriting.

The motifs in the songs are not easy to render in English, but one can at least attempt to translate some of them: master of the house, elk antlers, tree bark, sound of rapids, fog, letters, calves, fingers. The list, however, doesn’t make the songs easier to understand in a foreign language. The words sound archaic, anachronistic or timeless, the language of the myth. But can they be something else, too? And how transparent do we want the myth to be? At the risk of sounding dull, I suggest that the songs do speak to their age, our age, the nature of knowledge and work, the fluctuations of inspiration and threat. Unfortunately, it is mostly only the Finnish-speaking listeners who will be able to assess the validity of this idea.

The name of the album, Tuota tuota, translates roughly as “well, well” and signifies a thinking pause, a moment of contemplation. The language alone is likely to give pause to an English-speaking listener, but I hope the idea will convey itself in more ways than just that. And a pause for thinking is, of course, never a waste of time.