Reet

Rustic Estonian work songs and lullabies as imagined by a 1960s teenager with a guitar. I love this album. It's certainly sad enough. Each little wooden box of a song opens to reveal the story of a rural life lived rightly but tragically -- the lovelorn shepherd, the hayfield laborer under the heel of her feudal master, etc. The song lyrics read like scripts for miniature black & white allegorical films in the vein of Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, films where restless teenagers buck against village customs and start toying around with modern ideas and music they hear on the radio... Reet Hendrikson has a lovely voice and is a damn fine guitar player. There is something about the Estonian way with rhythm and melody that keeps you off balance in the nicest way. Whatever it is it works well with these little nuggets of sorrow Hendrikson throws at us. Anyway enjoy. This has been my album of the summer but now that there's a chill in the air it seems to be even more relevant.