Back to Carita Holmstrom in the ultra rare CD Duo! (1994)

I think you can safely ignore the cover photograph, totally unrepresentative of the musical contents.  I can't possibly explain it away, not should anyone for that matter. so let's drop the matter altogether and move on with the music review.

This is an artist who has never really disappointed us (me?), you can see all the albums I posted from her by using the search function, and for this reason I waited literally years for this album to turn up finally for sale.  It's pretty rare, I don't think you'll see another one come up for many years, unless you live in Finland, which doesn't happen to many people at all--perhaps a few million? sometimes? And it's really amazing that in the specific year of release, 1994, when alternative, heavy metal, so-called electronica, the new punk rock were all hitting the music scene like a tornado or rather four simultaneous tornados wiping all the older genres away, she made this incredibly progressive chamber music song collection with her long time collaborator Teppo Hauta-aho.  Just consider this one she wrote, giving it the English title of Just for the record, with cello accompanying her piano:





Information is here.  One track was recycled, oddly, from Aquamarin where it was called Nattvakten, here renamed Yövartija and cut off in a very odd manner.  In case you want to verify the discography, you will find We Are the debut here, the second album Toinen Levy here, Two Faces, Aquamarin and Growing , and now finally this one at the bottom.

Finishing up Carita Holmström with Aquamarin (1984), Time of Growing (1990)

We abandoned her discography after the year 1980 quite some time ago (could it really be 4.5 years!) with the disappointingly two-faced album Two Faces.  We shouldn't have, because there were more beautiful surprises to come.  I know throughout the blog I've mentioned her name many times as one of the most outstanding discoveries in the female SSW sphere, like a Finnish Carole King, with the welcome addition of some very progressive or inventive aspects here and there and that typical Scandinavian spirit of melancholy that blows like a January wind throughout, so the mistake is all mine.  Despite the Olivia Newton John-like cover of the 1984 Aquamarin straightaway the opener just blew me away, being, despite the slight deviance into 80s production, as good in composition as anything from the first magical album:





Jag ar hel = I am whole (?)

And the whole LP continues in the same vein, distinctly superior to its 1980 predecessor, surprisingly, despite this being the iconic year of George Orwell and Duran Duran.   As a whole it seems more mature, less childishly naive than the first album.

Moving forward into 1990 one cannot expect miracles from the music industry.  And indeed this album hits its nadir on the beginning of side b with 4 cover versions of Gershwin tracks, the most stupidly insipid ones like Fascinating Rhythm, a song so unfascinating to me I would gladly buy the sheet music just to use for toilet paper-- showing the odd bipolar tendency that was a hallmark of every Carita album since 1980, but then, surprise, the brilliant composer returns with a chamber suite called Tällainen Olen Maailmani in four parts, lasting less than 13 minutes, but heavenly for us to hear:





It's outrageous that in the year 1990 such music would have been produced with a hope to being heard!!  When I think back to that time I remember hair metal and Guns and Roses, the facile soul of Whitney Houston and idiocy of Celine...

Here's another part of the suite that sounds very much extracted from an opera she composed, building so much in its intensity with unusual chord structures I was utterly in shock:





The first side of this 1990 work is not at all disappointing either, despite what I had been led to believe by the release year.

So thank you, thank you Carita, for this.

Note that she continued with a couple more albums, and you can hear samples on discogs.  If I have some extra money in paypal I might try to buy those too, though I'm expecting bitter disappointment finally.

Carita Holmström & Teppo Hauta-aho - Two Faces (1980)

I do hope people haven't had enough yet of this wonderful artist, whose first two albums I already shared some time ago.

http://progressreview.blogspot.ca/2014/01/carita-holmstrom-we-are-what-we-do.html

http://progressreview.blogspot.ca/2014/02/carita-holmstroms-second-album-which.html

In keeping with the title and her training as a jazz artist, there is a serious dichotomy here between sides one and two, the latter of which is essentially entirely a throwaway surface with cover versions of not only trad. folk but the old John Lennon song "Dear Prudence" (admittedly, a beautiful song, but just not one I want to hear sung by anyone but John) and some old jazz standards like "Good Morning Heartache" (same story, you can't really do better than Billie Holiday on that one).  But let's go back to the first surface or πr² of this vinyl.

Here we once again have Carita at her best, her compositional skills blend together folk, pop, and a classical sensibility with some in-depth jazz training.  Notice that all the music on the first side was written by her save track A2 by Heikki Sarmanto the great Finnish composer.  (She contributed two passable tracks to side two as well.)

I'll present to you the first track:

Full information:

http://www.discogs.com/Carita-Holmstr%C3%B6m-Teppo-Hauta-aho-Two-Faces/release/5668921

Many many thanks to my friend for sharing this with me and with all...

Carita Holmström's Second album which translates as Toinen Levy (1974)

I am not sure to what degree the previous installment from this artist was enjoyed as there were relatively few comments in proportion to downloads-- in a ratio of perhaps one to a hundred-- which I understand is the norm for blogs from reading other laments elsewhere, but I thought it worthwhile to post her second which is instead sung in Finnish thereby concealing the meanings from myself personally, but it's equally remarkable and deeply beautiful.  There are quite a few 'missing' albums in her discography, that is, not appearing in such databases as discogs or rateyourmusic, and now the search is on to find some more of those possibly lost sunken treasures…

I will post as sample the track which stood out the most to me, which is A5.  My friend ripped his personal record for us all and for the community at large, if not for posterity, thereby making it available for everyone free and I thank him most profusely.  (A different collector here is involved than the previous post's Thomas Clausen connection though equally valuable and beloved).

A5 Katseita On Täynnä Avaruus:




Space full of glances--
strange innocence shines from them
--expressions of wondering
--frightened faces
How did it happen?

Eyes large, consider the heavens--
hopes, believes of new wonders
--lost, looking for
comfort
for itself.

When the fear is guarding the world--
not spells, people will be able to help.
The powers of heaven are silent
now our world is alone with its
concerns
--it's our fault.

Pure poetry this time.  It's unfortunate she reverted to her mother tongue but I understand the beauty of the lyrics was correspondingly enhanced vis-a-vis the English lyrics employed on the first album.

Carita Holmström - We Are What We Do (Finland, 1973)

From discogs:
"Finnish pianist, singer and composer of jazz, pop and classical music, born February 10th, 1954 in Helsinki, Finland. She took part in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 with the song 'Älä Mene Pois'. "

This was her first album, and there's a great little self-written blurb up there on the top left corner on the back.  So the title is about her life in music.  She recalls to me such Scandinavian artists as Maru and Mikael or the acoustic songs of Baltik.

Note that it's Carita who plays the acoustic piano so gorgeously all throughout this record.  She wrote the songs as well except for track A4, Yes' Time and a Word (by Jon Anderson and David Foster) -- how this song made it here flummoxes me, it seems to stand out. Her work at least so far as this record is concerned is very much a part of the seventies zeitgeist with its earnest insistence of all of us liking each other as brothers, saving trees, and singing to the earth. That super-idealism is what makes this to me and hopefully to others out there so poignant and heart-breakingly beautiful.  It's unfortunate that those principles were so fully disregarded.  What happened to that "new world a-comin' " in the words of Duke Ellington?  

In mood some of this reminds me of my beloved Radka Toneff, I've mentioned before how Scandinavian music often leans towards the melancholic, surely not surprising when considering its environment, as one can see from the predilection in Caribbean music for the festive.

Now consider the last track which is called "The Knight."  I will reprint in full the beautiful lyrics.  The remainder of the album is absent any Christian references, so this dream she has about the medieval knight who puts her sword on her and then vanishes, to me, seems more like a vividly actual dream than a religious vision.  But the ambiguity of it is there, it can be interpreted (to the detriment of the artistic quality in my opinion) as a faith conversion too.  Perhaps the beauty of it lies in this 'over-interpretation' as Freud would have called it.  The musical interplay between acoustic bass and piano recalls Bill Evans and Herbie Mann discussing Nirvana and is really utter perfection, the lilting of the waltz tempo adding to the dreaminess.  There is a great intermission section in which piano and bass travel down from the key of G to F major, to D minor 6, to B half-diminished, back to A minor, with sustained bass (i.e., played with a bow).  Notice too the quivering E note played by the acoustic bass at the end of stanzas, that perfectly simulates a knight holding his sword.  (Incidentally, the bass is played by Pekka Sarmanto, brother of famed composer Heikki Sarmanto.)  This is the sort of touch of artistry that made Radka's records such a delight.


"On a Sunday afternoon I heard the church bells distantly ringing out
On a Sunday afternoon on a day in spring, 
I heard the sound of streaming water, in a dream.
And the sounds from the motorway suddenly disappeared,
Faded out to a sound like trumpets playing
And he was there, the knight, in his silver armour, from ancient times.

He looked at me, I stared at him, and the white horse with golden wings stood beside him.
He took his sword, took a step towards me, and he lay it on my shoulder.
And then it returned-- the trumpet sound, and he was gone for a battle.
He was gone, the knight, in his silver armour, from ancient times.

On a foggy afternoon, on a day in spring
I heard the church bells distantly ringing out.
On a Sunday afternoon on a day in spring,
I heard the sound of streaming water in a dream."


Incredible, utterly lovely. So seventies.






Now let's rewind back to the beginning.  In prognotfrog's write-up on Kurt Memo's Capt. Thunder the issue of unintentionally humorously earnest seventies lyrics was discussed at length.  
Consider the second song:

"Standing here at the top of the hill, singing to the earth,
Standing here looking down to the valley, singing to the earth,
Nobody in the world is near me,
Nobody in the world can hear me,
Here I stand feeling oh so lonesome now..."





Anyone who grew up in the 1970s like me will be reminded of Coke's classic ad of "I'd like to teach the world to sing" or Sesame Street's comparable and equivalent: "Sing a song, make it simple, to last your whole life long..."  which my own small kids still love to hear me play.

On track A5 (We've got to change) meantime she discusses the political strife in the world circa 1973:

"This is a funny world we're living in.
No room for feelings, no room for love.
People turning their backs on you
'cause they've forgotten the way to live--
and in their eyes you can see weariness and boredom,
in their eyes you can see a locked-up soul,
in their eyes you can see, they want to feel.

We got to change, take the sword of hate out of each others' hearts
and look into each others' eyes and say, I like you."

Surely that would go over well at one of the meetings of the G20.  
So no, we didn't change.
But let me ask you this: did we miss the boat?  Aren't we today well aware we took the wrong path in that forked road, down the path of consumerism, vanity, and short-term gratifications, instead of the narrow road less travelled of postponement and care for each other, blithely chopping down that last truffula tree?  Don't we, seriously, all realize this to the same degree we are helpless to do anything about it?  Few people cannot be aware of the insanity of endless consumption, the effects of it on the world today, particularly in poor countries, and the future our children will live in, and especially the incessant boredom that is the partner to continuous self-gratification.  So what she is saying is as true as it ever was, but we have newer and more cynical or modern ways to ignore the message.  We have to couch the prescription in medical or scientific terms, encouraging walks in nature and reassuring bromides or Oprah'ídes that giving will make us happier people, rather than admitting the truth of it.  Don't you think so?  I suppose this is a case where our human nature was too powerful for us to suppress, and if you're a pessimist like me, you realize we are innocent, we couldn't help ourselves, we'll destroy this world and our species who like all others is entirely dependent on it.

But I hope for the sake of my young children that if doom does come, it comes later rather than sooner-- and all those parents out there better be agreement on this point... which is why it does matter what we do and say today.

I want to thank my friend for purchasing this album-- well, first of all for being aware of it, and then for introducing me and the rest of those with open minds to yet another beautiful and long-lost singer.  Although at first I wasn't sure this was even good, it grew on me after several listens and now, these last days, I can't stop playing it.