Duo Ruuts Ilmateade: A Soulful Exploration of Weather and Emotion
Duo Ruut, consisting of Ann-Lisett Rebane and Katariina Kivi, is an Estonian musical duo that writes, sings, and plays facing each other on a single kannel (an Estonian zither). Their music is characterized by a glistening minimalism in its rhythms and a crossover sheen in its sound, achieved through the use of repetitive motifs from runo song, a form of traditional oral poetry specific to the Baltic Finnic languages. Rebane and Kivi's voices are often sweet but also sharp when required.
Their second album, Ilmateade (Weather Report), explores the powerful yet under-sung connections between the weather and emotion. The album begins with the minute-long Intro, a track that builds on the scratchy, dying notes of their 2021 EP, Kulla Kerguseks (From the Lightness of Gold), implying both continuity and metamorphosis. Udu (Fog) lulls the listener along on thick, beautiful clouds of shifting time signatures, while Vastlalaul (The Sledding Song) slows and speeds through the snow with a glossy, rhythmically complex sound. These songs have solid, ancient roots, but fans of ambient, Balearic dreaminess and the softer sides of indie pop and psych-folk will find woozy comforts in their melancholic melodies.
Good entry points for fans include the earwormy melancholia of Vilud Ilmad (Gloomy Weather) and the itchy handclaps in Suvi Rannas (Summer on the Beach), in which we're told, in Estonian, of days hot with horseflies and a sky broad and bare. Other Estonian artists brought into the fold provide different depths. Guitarist Erki Pärnoja's solos swirl around the women's wordless melodies on Interlude, while poet EiK 2509 adds spoken-word contributions to the mesmerizing Enne Ööd (Nightfall). All together, these 12 tracks create a hypnotic shipping forecast transplanted to the Baltic Sea, carrying us along on its eddying tides.
Other notable releases this month include Jennifer Reid's The Ballad of the Gatekeeper (self-released), a full-blooded fantastic debut from a singer who researches 19th-century broadside ballads and has acted in BBC Two's The Gallows Pole. Mixing centuries-old working songs with new material about fast fashion, climate breakdown, and Covid, Reid is a striking talent - her a cappellas especially full of bite. Brìghde Chaimbeul's Sunwise (Tak:til/Glitterbeat) eerily transports us from high summer to songs of midwinter. Her smallpipe drones are less abrasive than on 2023's brilliant, abrasive Carry Them With Us, but her canntaireachd singing (a style deliberately vocalizing bagpipes) is more propulsive, heavy, and completely compelling. Similarly bewitching is the Norwegian trio Hekate, whose new album Evigheten Forestår (Eternity Imagines) collects slåttetralling (Norwegian vocal dance tune improvisations) from across their homeland. Their tones are by turns spiky, perky, sad, and sacred.
