Let three South American string instrument musicians who live in Helsinki improvise freely during the Finnish summer and you got the delightful album «Ärnär ». These three musicians are Colombian harpist Natalia Castrillón Arcila, who is also an educator, fellow-Colombian cellist Sergio Castrillón Arcila, who is also an experimental multidisciplinary sound artist and researcher, and Argentinian guitarist Gonzalo Muruaga Olguin. «Ärnär: Live in Tenho» was recorded at Tenho in Helsinki in August 2020.

These South Americans sound like rushing, full of energy, into the chilly Nordic forest, and determined to find some resonating qualities between the steamy and open South American ones and the reserved and introspective Finnish ones. They open with a tense, powerful improvisation, «Eka Tarina», but the magic happens already in the following piece, «Collective Units», which sends this trio into a search of a mysterious and timeless folk melody within the misty, poetic forest, only to find itself lost in another captivating free improvisation.

On «Afiladas Rugosas» and «Ärnär Pandemix» the trio insists on mapping the misty Finnish forest in its own loose yet energetic and risk-taking cartographic terms. Sergio Castrillón’s wordless vocals on «Vika Tarina» inform that the trio found a safe haven in this poetic forest. This adventurous journey is concluded with the beautiful, compassionate melody of «Liike», welcoming, again, the misty mysteries of the Finnish forest.

Eyal Hareuveni

Natalia Castrillón (Lever harp, prepared llanera harp), Sergio Castrillón (c, eff v), Gon Muruaga (el.g, eff)