Mummi Kutoo
When I picked Jodi up from the airport a week and a half ago, my second question, after “How was the flight?”, was “So you wanna listen to Mummi Kutoo or Pugh Rogefeldt?” It’s not all that hilarious in print, but she laughed, knowing I was poking fun at my recent predilection for obscure music sung in the artist’s native tongue (ie. not English).
Perhaps it’s just my Norse blood, but over the last two years I’ve become exceedingly fascinated by Scandinavian music. A few years ago, Parasol turned me on to Swedish rockers The Soundtrack of Our Lives, and, later, pop masterminds The Bear Quartet, among many others. Then I wandered off onto a nine-month excursion into Swedish death and Norwegian black metal, before The Great Psych Craze of ’04, in which Dungen and Circle played major roles (thank you, Aquarius).
I’ve asked myself over and over again, “Just how, exactly, did so many amazing bands come from such a relatively small region?” I have yet to find a definitive answer (though a related question gets broached here), but I continue to uncover more and more such bands, practically unknown and only now (barely) being distributed in America, who, quite simply, have blown my mind. To give credit where it’s due, it’s not really me doing the heavy legwork, it’s guys like Parasol’s Jim Kelly, Avi Roig of It’s A Trap, and, of course, the fine folks at Aquarius Records in San Francisco; I am merely the Scandinavian-loving lapdog following their lead.
Sometime in the fall of ’04, Ektro Records, the Finnish label run by Circle’s Jussi Lehtisalo issued a disc by a band called Mummi Kutoo. Little in the way of background information was provided, at least, not in English; all we knew was that it was a reissue of some Finnish folk/prog LP from the seventies. Aquarius put up a couple of sound samples and did a brief write-up:
When it arrived in the mail, I dug in eagerly and was not disappointed. The first thing that stood out to me was actually the painting on the album’s cover. Nothing short of beautiful, it evoked the rustic beauty of Dylan’s painting on the cover of The Band’s Music From Big Pink (I almost think this had to be intentional…) Lots of liner notes (all in Finnish) and cool pics in the booklet.
Musically, I had thought the reference to “a countrified Dungen” might have been just a little too convenient, but it works rather well, albeit Dungen’s Gustav Ejstes sings in Swedish as opposed to Finnish. Like the Dungen of today, Mummi Kutoo in the seventies were an adventurous group of psychedelic genre-fuckers with ears for a melody and a playful knack for the unexpected. Utilizing mostly traditional instrumentation (acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo, piano, clarinet, harmonica), their songs, generally between two and three minutes, are warm and inviting, with vocal harmonies pristine and gorgeous. If this says anything about the relative catchiness of a Mummi Kutoo song, I find myself regularly singing these songs in the shower, even though I haven’t a damn clue what I’m singing about. Rather than a frustration, though, this actually seems to add to the charm and mystique of this band.
Is there anybody out there who knows Finnish and would kindly translate this web page for me? Then I might be able to expound further on the history of this band. For now, all I can tell you is that Mummi Kutoo were around from 1973-1976 before changing their name to Suistomaan Pojat and carrying on through 1978. Of the twenty-three songs here, the first fourteen are from Mummi Kutoo's 1975 self-titled album on Love Records, and the last nine are bonus tracks from their latter incarnation. No clue what these cats are doing now. I even looked up the words “mummi”, “kutoo”, “suistomaan”, and “pojat” in several online Finnish-to-English dictionaries, with no results.
N/P Why Mummi Kutoo, of course!
Perhaps it’s just my Norse blood, but over the last two years I’ve become exceedingly fascinated by Scandinavian music. A few years ago, Parasol turned me on to Swedish rockers The Soundtrack of Our Lives, and, later, pop masterminds The Bear Quartet, among many others. Then I wandered off onto a nine-month excursion into Swedish death and Norwegian black metal, before The Great Psych Craze of ’04, in which Dungen and Circle played major roles (thank you, Aquarius).
I’ve asked myself over and over again, “Just how, exactly, did so many amazing bands come from such a relatively small region?” I have yet to find a definitive answer (though a related question gets broached here), but I continue to uncover more and more such bands, practically unknown and only now (barely) being distributed in America, who, quite simply, have blown my mind. To give credit where it’s due, it’s not really me doing the heavy legwork, it’s guys like Parasol’s Jim Kelly, Avi Roig of It’s A Trap, and, of course, the fine folks at Aquarius Records in San Francisco; I am merely the Scandinavian-loving lapdog following their lead.
Sometime in the fall of ’04, Ektro Records, the Finnish label run by Circle’s Jussi Lehtisalo issued a disc by a band called Mummi Kutoo. Little in the way of background information was provided, at least, not in English; all we knew was that it was a reissue of some Finnish folk/prog LP from the seventies. Aquarius put up a couple of sound samples and did a brief write-up:
They play a weird (and you may think wonderful) concoction of rustic folk, psychedelic rock, New Orleans jazz, honkytonk, and bluegrass...one track might be all flutes and Floyd, the next a brass band number! Quite diverse in mood and musical style. In parts, it's a bit like a countrified Dungen, if you're familiar with that current-yet-retro Swedish band.A countrified Dungen, eh? Intrigued, I mined the sound samples and came up with gold. I immediately fired off a special order for the disc, sat back, and waited.
When it arrived in the mail, I dug in eagerly and was not disappointed. The first thing that stood out to me was actually the painting on the album’s cover. Nothing short of beautiful, it evoked the rustic beauty of Dylan’s painting on the cover of The Band’s Music From Big Pink (I almost think this had to be intentional…) Lots of liner notes (all in Finnish) and cool pics in the booklet.
Musically, I had thought the reference to “a countrified Dungen” might have been just a little too convenient, but it works rather well, albeit Dungen’s Gustav Ejstes sings in Swedish as opposed to Finnish. Like the Dungen of today, Mummi Kutoo in the seventies were an adventurous group of psychedelic genre-fuckers with ears for a melody and a playful knack for the unexpected. Utilizing mostly traditional instrumentation (acoustic guitar, mandolin, banjo, piano, clarinet, harmonica), their songs, generally between two and three minutes, are warm and inviting, with vocal harmonies pristine and gorgeous. If this says anything about the relative catchiness of a Mummi Kutoo song, I find myself regularly singing these songs in the shower, even though I haven’t a damn clue what I’m singing about. Rather than a frustration, though, this actually seems to add to the charm and mystique of this band.
Is there anybody out there who knows Finnish and would kindly translate this web page for me? Then I might be able to expound further on the history of this band. For now, all I can tell you is that Mummi Kutoo were around from 1973-1976 before changing their name to Suistomaan Pojat and carrying on through 1978. Of the twenty-three songs here, the first fourteen are from Mummi Kutoo's 1975 self-titled album on Love Records, and the last nine are bonus tracks from their latter incarnation. No clue what these cats are doing now. I even looked up the words “mummi”, “kutoo”, “suistomaan”, and “pojat” in several online Finnish-to-English dictionaries, with no results.
N/P Why Mummi Kutoo, of course!
posted by Jonathan Wright at 11:37 AM EMAIL POST
