Värttinä

I discovered Värttinä because they were recommended to me in connection with another artist on YouTube. I thought they'd be a good artist to feature because they are very different to the artists I've featured before now. I like Värttinä because I find their powerful voices very catchy.


Värttinä is a Finnish folk band. The two sisters Sari and Mari Kaasinen originally began the band as a project in 1983. The band is made up of three lead female vocalists and three acoustic members and they sing in the Karelian language of Finnish Karelia. In a way they remind me of Madonna because the music they produce has changed over the years. They began producing pure folk music but in the 1990s, they began to combine their folk music with rock, jazz and pop music.


I've decided to include quite a few clips of their music because I thought you'd like to hear the different sorts of music they've made. Please let me know if you'd like me to include more clips in future though by commenting on my blog or sending me a tweet!


This is one of their pure folk music songs:

This is one of their folk songs, which they've combined with pop music:

If you'd like to listen to more samples of their music, here are the links to their mp3 albums on Amazon: Miero and Vihma.


They've written other albums but for some reason, they aren't available in mp3 format on Amazon in America, so here are the links to their audio CDs on Amazon: Seleniko, Oi Dai, Kokko, Ilmatar, Aitara and Iki (N.B. Every one of these audio CDs apart from the last one is cheaper than the mp3 albums above, so if you want to save money, you're better off buying the audio CDs).