Hailing from Lapland, Jaakko Laitinen & Väärä Raha manage to infuse both old and new world elements into their self-titled debut.
The big Balkan horns are what first drew me into their songs, there's something about this style of brass work that brings to mind lost European mountain villages *and* the whiskey fueled American old west. There's other East-meets-West elements as well: the Roma rhythms, the cross-cultural mandolin... but what really puts Jaakko Laitinen & Väärä Raha into their own category is that they're more interested in subverting the tango than they are reinventing the waltz or polka. This take on South American sultry-ness infuses these songs with a sexy dance groove that's hard to beat.
