Live Review: Johanna Juhola Reaktori at NCEM (2)

By James Cave

Accordion-playing has a long tradition in Finland. In the 1940s and 50s, accordionists rose to prominence providing improvised accompaniment for wrestling matches, at that time the nation’s favourite sport. A key skill was disguising the participants’ flatulence: players who could improvise a special effect at a potentially embarrassing moment were highly prized.

And Finns also love to tango. The dance was introduced to the country a century ago, and has proved enduringly popular, with one in fifty taking part in the largest annual tango festival.

But hang on - this picture of high-kicking and wild abandon doesn’t fit with my image of Finnish people as fundamentally serious? I’ve been to Helsinki on numerous occasions: in my (possibly limited) experience Finns like nothing more than to follow a dip in a freezing lake with a quiet evening-in reading philosophy. The typical Finnish busker is more likely to serenade you with the Sibelius Violin Concerto than ‘Poker Face’.

But some quick desktop research leaves me reassured. Apparently, Finnish tango is distinguished by being performed ‘almost exclusively in minor keys’ with ‘no kicks or aerial moves allowed’. That’s that sorted then: Finnish tango is an appropriately serious form of the dance, as austere as salmiakki (Finnish salt-liquorice).

So the brand of fun, postmodern tango presented by Johanna Juhola and Reaktori was altogether less formal than expected. Mixing Juhola’s considerable accordion skills, with upright bass, keyboards and electronics, the overall sound owed more to Gotan Project’s ‘rebooted’ tango than earlier versions. That having been said, there were some winning nods to the past. In the first set’s best number, the late, lamented star of Argentine tango, Carlos Gardel, guested with the band courtesy of old film footage.

In another strong number, ‘Longing for the South’, Juhola alluded to the master of tango composition, Astor Piazolla, best known for a tune of the same name. Juhola is a two-times winner of the international accordion competition named for Piazolla; and she started the second half with a affecting composition reminiscent of this composer, ’Elevator Music’, for keyboard and accordion, which proved to be anything but musical wallpaper.

The between-song repartee provided by the band was also a highlight. Halfway through the second-half, technical problems temporarily brought the gig to a halt, which provided an opportunity for Juhola to provide the audience with brief lessons in Finnish and Swedish (for which we say, ‘kiitos!’), as well as asides about her love of musicals and the peculiarities of Finnish folk-dancing. The set ended with a quicksilver take on a traditional dance, the Hummpa, which left band and audience breathless. No indie-band aloofness at the end: they came back to take a proper group-bow. Serious about having fun, these Finns.