Tenhi
Saivo

Probably the music of Tenhi sounds so Beyond because the Tenhi themselves are Beyond.

It certainly helps that Tenhi come from remote Finland: when it comes to neofolk, after all, expressions like "ancestral" and "timeless" are the most overused, but in the case of Tenhi the ties to the known world become indeed thin (if not for that sense of Universality that their music carries within) and the only comparison that can come to mind, despite the undeniable differences, is with another band germinated in a land equally enchanting and isolated from the rest of the known world. That land is Iceland and the name of that band is Sigur Ros: a link that is found in the rootedness in the indescribable landscapes of a majestic and unsettling nature, a link strengthened by the strict use, as it happens with Sigur Ros, of the mother tongue, this time Finnish.

The images are therefore of the desolate tundra, the silent fjord, the eternal night brightened by the northern lights, the imposing snow-capped peak, the placid frozen lake, custodian of timeless secrets, unapproachable to mortal eyes: secrets tinged with mythology, sacredness, pagan rites, and ancient beliefs. But do not think that the seventy minutes composing "Saivo" are yet another slideshow of soporific frames that we might easily expect from such a setting. Tenhi's music is solid, better: deep. Better yet: full, rich, substantial, continuously changing and at the same time firmly coherent with itself, whether their folk is simply evocative, or rising in markedly progressive evolutions (note the off-beats of the rhythms, the jazzy touch of the piano, the brilliant plucking of the guitars), or cloaked in the decadent spleen of dark-wave of eighties memory (the exhausting recitative, the panic effect of some sound stratifications that border on the darkest psychedelia), or melt into a catacomb ambient, full of those injections of minimal electronics that certainly do not break the irremediably acoustic structure of the work.

"Saivo" is the long-awaited last musical effort of these creatures of the night, released five years after "Maaaet", which constituted the second chapter of a trilogy almost concurrently started with "Airut: Aamujen", and now completed, on the long run, with this work coming to light at the end of 2011. And it matters little if in the meantime Illka Salminen, a fundamental pillar and co-founder of the band, has been lost along the way. The two survivors Tiko Saarikko and Ilmari Issakainen manage to survive as a duo, from the compact and indissoluble trio they were, and set up, among the violas, cellos, flutes, the choruses of a chamber ensemble miraculously put together, an excellent work to say the least, excellently orchestrated, carefully detailed, with splendid sounds, of unheard depth, and that, compared to its predecessors, prefers to set aside the more vital urges to indulge, without boring, in intimate and evocative, but also heroic, epic, sometimes martial, atmospheres that at every step recall that dimension of the Underworld, those transition moods, those immortal requiem atmospheres that the concept intends to tackle, that the cover portrays, and that the title itself anticipates ("Saivo", in Sàmi mythology, is "the world where Death lives").

And "Saivo" is the most metaphysical, most intangible, most detached from the modernist contaminations that still intertwine imperceptibly in the sound mantra set up by this band that seems to have no boundaries: a climb that mounts higher and higher, towards the supernatural; a descent that digs its path deeper and deeper, into the dark and unknown dimension of human nature, through the reinterpretation of ancient traditions, beliefs, and myths. Boundless, as said, because the musical culture of ours, although subservient to their strict intents, is vast, so much that one can trace, among the grooves of these suffering notes, in the majestic landscape excursions, in the desolate arpeggios lost in the fog of a night of which the origin is unknown, in the solemn odinic choirs recalling ancient cultures, close to the Divine, the echoes of the black art of Quorthon of Bathory, "honorary mayor of Scandinavia", an evocation not out of place since ours have never made a secret of listening to and loving heavy metal, as well.

Florian Fricke meets Quorthon, one might therefore say, and it is no coincidence that the crystalline piano, with its mystical languor, in the introductory "Saivon Kimallus" materializes none other than the Popol Vuh of "Hosianna Mantra", though immediately buried by the exhausting hiss of Tyko Saarikko that brings everything back, through his moribund hoarseness, within the confines of the tensest neofolk of our times (think of the Orplid, Sonne Hagal, Forseti, Darkwood, protagonists of the recent wave of Germanic folk, themselves also practitioners and disseminators of a tradition lost in the centuries of man's history). But behold, the dynamics of the drums of the splendid "Pojan Kiiski" once again surprise the listener, delivering a band not content to stop at the bucolic and naturalistic folk of the aforementioned bands: a journey that knows how to alternate, without boring, different suggestions, a difficult excursion into the icy expanses of the harsh North that finds in the animated "Haaksi" and "Savoie" the most engaging stages, an indispensable interlude to the lugubrious and silent evocations of ghosts that abound here, up to the spine-chilling conclusion of the infinite "Siniset Runot", incredible in its poetry, in the ambient pauses as in the poignant restarts with vague post-rock hints (but a chamber post-rock, which has nothing to share with its more typical indie incarnations).

In short, music of the tundra as – and here I say something bold – that of Kyuss is of the desert: immense the inspiration and emotional exchange between artists and context. But enough words, I can never do without them even when there is no need: suffice to add/conclude that "Saivo" is yet another jewel brought to light (from the darkness) by an ensemble that is not only able, despite its fifteen years of activity, the various albums released, and the upheavals that have rocked its line-up, to remain firmly at high levels, but that continues to amaze, even on this occasion, for the vivid beauty of the music it can stage.

Unmissable. Beyond. Undeniably Beyond.