Tenhi - The arcane enchanters

They're the revelation of 2006: enigmatic and introspective, Finland's Tenhi have crafted this year's masterpiece with "Maaäet", an intense, anguished sound-poem dedicated to nature and memory. Ilmari Issakainen, bassist and pianist of the Lappish band, talks to us about the genesis of this extraordinary album, the third chapter of their saga after "Kauan" (1999) and "Väre" (2002), and about everything orbiting the creation of their glacial acoustic landscapes.

First of all, let's introduce yourselves to the Italian audience: how did the Tenhi project come about, and how has it evolved?

About ten years ago, the three of us - Tyko Saarikko, Ilkka Salminen and myself - started playing together.

We met while attending the same art school and grew close over a shared love of the same kind of music. After our first demo ("Kertomusika", from 1997, ed.) we immediately landed a deal with Prophecy Productions, and since then we've put out two EPs and three albums.

Musically we tend to follow more or less the same path, trying to evoke melancholic images drawn from our inner visions.

I find that your latest album "Maaäet" marks a clear departure from your previous work. Deeper and more intense, ultimately more expressive. What specific goal were you aiming for, and what feelings did you want to express through this record?

To be honest, we didn't have a very clear vision of ourselves, nor of the material we were composing, when we started working on "Maaäet". Our goals started becoming clearer as the composition process went on, and whatever our initial thoughts and intentions were, the album evolved into something totally unexpected, even for us. One of the main starting ideas remained intact throughout the whole process, though: giving the voice a more prominent role and using singing as the main vehicle for most of the feelings and emotions we wanted to convey.

For me personally that was a pretty difficult period, and most of my thoughts were painful ones. Creating "Maaäet" was therapy for the soul.

Critics have given the album an almost universally triumphant reception. Do you consider "Maaäet" your best record, and how does it compare to your previous work?

Without a doubt, I consider "Maaäet" the best album we've made so far. I also think it's our hardest work to take in, and that it works best when listened to as one single, large piece. I agree that "Kauan" and "Väre" aren't as expressive, nor do they reach the depths that "Maaäet" manages to reach.

The choice to sing in your mother tongue is fascinating, but it can make your music quite hard for a non-Finnish audience to approach. Does this choice stem from some bond tying Tenhi to your country's traditional culture? Can we expect a "conversion" to English from you in the future?

I believe the Finnish language best represents our mindset. Tenhi's music is certainly rooted in our country's folk tradition, so relying strictly on our mother tongue to express our feelings and inner visions in the truest, most complete way was an obvious choice. Honestly, we don't worry about whether this makes our music harder to approach or understand.

Critics mostly describe your music using terms like "folk" and "progressive". But I don't think there are definitions that come close to capturing what you do, since I feel you've managed to create a world (a genre?) all your own. I'm thinking, for instance, of a song like "Kielo" (from the EP "airut:ciwi", 2001), which is something completely new, alien, never heard before. So what influences and genres do you feel are closest to your so unique art?

It's always hard to cage music inside categories or definitions, and it's always hard to try to give even a vague idea of who we are and what we play to people who approach us with terms like "folk" and "prog" already in mind. There are at least a dozen different, interesting genres flowing into our music: basically, I think describing our music properly would take far too many words.

"Kielo" is indeed an absolutely central track for us and for our musical evolution. It has all the elements of our sound and our "thinking". The song was initially written to be included on the "Kauan" album, but even as we were composing it we realized it would become the future direction of our songwriting.

Does what you listen to mirror your own music? What do you like most?

Really, all sorts of things. My personal tastes range from classical music to heavy metal.

Since your beginnings you've built a solid relationship with the German label Prophecy Productions. A truly eclectic and interesting label, but one that was, at least initially, devoted mostly to metal sounds: what made you see Prophecy as the "right" label for you? And which are your favourite bands within Prophecy's fine roster?

Tyko and Ilkka listened to some tracks by Empyrium (a band symbolic of the German label's early days, ed.) and their music seemed to live within the same visions as ours, so we thought the label might be interested in our work too. Besides, at the time there really wasn't any label showing interest in us here in Finland.

Prophecy is a unique label, where what mainly unites the bands is precisely the diversity in expressing their own distinct, strong personalities. There are really a lot of great bands in its catalogue. My favourites are Dornenreich, Orplid and Antimatter.

Musically speaking, at least over here, Finland is known mostly as the homeland of many doom or gothic-metal bands, or of electronic and avant-garde projects. Maybe I'm wrong, but my feeling is that you're a unique case and, as a result, quite "isolated" even within your own country's scene. Is that the case, or are there bands similar to you in Finland? What's your relationship with the scene and audience back home?

When we started ten years ago there really wasn't a single band doing anything like our music. Now it seems like something is growing, both in Finland and abroad. In any case, our fanbase has developed outside Finland from the very beginning, and to this day we're still not very well known at home. Even though we're getting more and more attention, on the whole we remain complete outsiders to our own country's music scene. That's not necessarily a bad thing for us, though — it lets us focus entirely on our music. Which, in the end, is what matters most.

You don't play live very often. Is there any chance of seeing you in Italy at some point?

We'd love to, and we hope we'll be able to come to Italy and tour. We don't have any firm plans for the future, but I think it'll be a while before we play live again.

Thank you for your time, your patience and your wonderful music. Feel free to close the interview with whatever words you like.

Thank you, we really hope to see you in Italy as soon as possible.

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