STORIED SOUNDS (RBRCD31; CDNN091)
Storied Sounds is a beautifully-composed love letter to the Estonian landscapes of Tuulikki’s childhood, to more recent adventures, and to family and friends.
There is a glimmering vividness in these tracks. Pulsating cities, screeching seagulls, fishes flapping in nets, the smell of the forest in autumn and spring...all of these things, and more, are depicted powerfully in their reflective tunescapes. Ambient field recordings made in Estonia infuse several pieces, enhancing their already strong sense of place.
Storied Sounds evokes an elemental point where nature, memory and music converge.
Tuulikki says, “We transfer our traditions to each other, take our world with us wherever we go, and we take something with us from every place we visit, every person we meet.”
Tuulikki Bartosik - free bass accordion, voice, metallophone, all compositions
Timo Alakotila - piano
Villu Talsi - mandolin
Dylan Fowler - guitar
There's little doubting Bartosik's credentials as a highly imaginative and expressive accordion player, yet in the case of STORIED SOUNDS, it's the inventiveness of the musical arrangements, together with the use of atmospheric field recordings that brings these thirteen pieces of music alive; a meeting of music and nature so beautifully captured and encapsulated in just under an hour.
- Alan Wilkinson, Northern Sky Magazine
Storied Sounds is the debut solo album by Estonian accordion player Tuulikki Bartosik. Inspired by childhood summers by the Baltic Sea, forest rambles, dark Scandinavian winters and even relics of the former Soviet landscape, Storied Sounds is a series of sketches of the places and people that have formed Tuulikki’s journey. Incorporating field recordings of birdsong, murmuring rivers, abrasive seagull cries and even the growl of the city, Storied Sounds creates a vivid context for music that is by turns robust, joyous, and wistful.
- Joan Crump, director of the Hartlepool Folk Festival
One of the joys of this record is that it demonstrates that musical traditions are effectively pointless if they do not evolve or are never brought to new audiences. In the same way that the idea of home could not exist without the possibility of travel, tradition means nothing without evolution. Storied Sounds encapsulates this concept with breathtaking simplicity and vibrancy.
- Thomas Blake, FolkRadioUK
Released under the independent UK label RootBeatRecords, under the German label Nordic Notes and Japanese label Metacompany.
Track list
1. Daniels polska 05:06
2. November/Rõuge river in November/Rõuge jõgi novembris/Fireplace/kaminatuli 03:14
3. Tormilind/Seagull/Seagulls in the Baltic/ Balti mere kajakad 05:30
4. Time?/Aeg? /Nybrokajen,Stockholm 03:43
5. Leo slängpolska/Spring in Rõuge/Rõuge kevad 06:25
6. Calling in Rõuge/Rõuge hõiked 01:19
7. Theo the Tiger/Theo valss 04:27
8. Josefins vaggvisa 08:54
9. Zeltini secrets/Zeltini saladused 00:55
10. Orsa 03:43
11. Moon salutation/Tervitus kuule 04:23
12. To Hannah&Ben 03:05
13. Karins brudpolska 04:27
Total time 55:09
Recorded in Estonian Radio by Siim Mäesalu & in Stiwdio Felin Fach by Dylan Fowler, field recordings made by Tuulikki Bartosik, John Grzinich & Simon Whetham in the collaboration project Active Crossover in Mooste, Estonia
Artwork by Krõõt Kukkur
Mixed by Rainer Koik
Mastered by Minerva Pappi