Trio Peltomaa Fraanje Perkola is back with a new album. back with their unique sound world. Aino Peltomaa (vocals and medieval harp), Harmen Fraanje (piano and synthesizer) and Mikko Perkola (viola da gamba and electronics) conquered many hearts with their unique sound world on their successful first album ÆR. Now they are back with a second album called Komorebi.
The word Komorebi is Japanese and actually has no English translation. But if we break down the three words — ko (tree), more (leak or let through) and bi (sun) — it takes on meaning as sunlight shining through the trees. A beloved topos in Japanese poetry. The Japanese title creates the illusion that you might expect Japanese musical influences. Yet this is not the case. Misleading? In the literal sense perhaps, but conceptually it fits with this distinctive sound cloud.
Where ÆR was a contemporary interpretation of 13th-century pilgrimage songs, Hildegard von Bingen with Perotinus and Gregorian chants, Komorebi once again delves into medieval chants but then blended with Finnish folk music. While their source of inspiration has a different infusion, the resulting sound is clearly recognizable as Trio Peltomaa Fraanje Perkola.
If you play the two albums mixed together, you cannot possibly distinguish them from each other. Only after listening to each album multiple times separately do you eventually know which track comes from which album. Komorebi therefore does not showcase a different side of the trio in order to put their versatility in the spotlight. Quite the opposite. It is rather a subtle extension of ÆR. No attention-seeking virtuosity but intimate sounds with subtle expressivity.
The music has a kind of transcendent and serene character. It is absolutely not background music. The beauty really comes into its own only when you completely let yourself drift on the flow of the cadence. As if the music embraces you, shielded from the hyperactive outside world you come to rest. Just as Japanese poetry has distilled the serene forest scene, Trio Peltomaa Fraanje Perkola brings a musical translation of the sunlight caressing the leaves.
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