SALATTU MAAILMA

You know this long lived FInnish band is smart just from a glance at their credits. It's not even so much that they have two mellotron players, though that is awesome, but that they use mellotron at all, given all the generations of inadequate replacements to which old timers have been subject. For an instrument that by many measures counts as obsolete, it is more emotionally available than the darlings of technology will ever be. Here KOSMOS deploys it in the manner befitting its regality, with strings, choirs and authentic flute, plucked acoustic guitar, and, when nothing else will do, real violin accompaniment. Bonus points for their female singer, Päivi Kylmänen, to whom folk music is apparently a mother tongue. Did I mention this is a mellotron fest???

The best is first, "A HIdden World" invoking KING CRIMSON's debut while making the likes of PFM and CELESTE blush. Such low hanging fruit was barely or improperly harvested in the intervening decades for some reason, but not here. Is that mellotron "oboe" I hear? For the rest, plenty to enjoy if high complexity isn't a prerequisite, whether the even more folky "Seashell"; the straightforward folk rock of "incantation"; the initially ambient and then 12-string whipped "The Wind", with a tune, but nothing else, reminiscent of "Handicap and Equality" by PETER HAMMILL; and the largely instrumental "A Dream", which has more in common with BRIAN ENO or JADE WARRIOR but with mellotron!

With a name that translates as "The Encrypted World", the joys of this KOSMOS album are of the most rewarding prog folk kind, simple yet profound, and earthly yet ethereal.