Recording Maija Kauhanen

Earlier this year I enjoyed a one-week visit to Helsinki wearing my producer's hat (furry with ear-muffs), working with the remarkable Maija Kauhanen - expert player of the kantele (Finland's national instrument, British types might call it some kind of zither), singer, percussionist and composer/songwriter of artfully undulating soundscapes, generating sparse skeins of silvery sonority, glittering as snow-dripped pine trees in a Nordic forest in the long sunlight, rising to intense rhythmic blocks of deep texture, channeling the wordless, nature-communing joiking tradition or unflinchingly delineating dark tales of abuse and murder, a lullaby laden with foreboding as well as, of course, a story of the mystery of young love.

Sterling sound technician Joonas Sakari Saikkonen at the controls

Recording took place at the excellent Ambient Studios, discreetly located above an auto-mechanics' workshop in an industrial area, and a veritable storehouse of vintage gear including a fine old Neve analogue desk and an exciting stock of microphones including some elderly but still proudly functioning RCA ribbon mics.

Venerable and highly desirable antique RCA ribbon microphone

As Maija writes and performs her songs best in organic fashion - singing, playing kantele and percussion at the same time - that was how we recorded her, without (except for one song) the aid of click-tracks. So each song is a performance. There are some with additional overdubs, but everything you hear is sung and played by Maija.

The team

Postscript: The album, ‘Raivopyora’, was released in 2017 by the fine German label Nordic Notes and in 2018 it won the ‘Best Etno Album’ award at the prestigious Finnish Emma Awards. Here’s a live performance clip of Maija from 2017, playing one of the tracks from the album, ‘Pinnalla (Floating).