In our imaginary top drawer of a cappella ensembles who have shown us, again and again, sheer vocal talent, whimsical cutting edge arrangements, effortless harmonies, sublime leads and exquisitely crafted recordings, we search around, past several well-played Real Group CDs, to happily find a handful of albums by Finnish mixed-voice sextet Rajaton. One of the first ones to blow us away, despite its dearth of English lyrics, was "Joulu," the group's hugely successful Christmas album. Well, it's been a long wait, but we hold in our hot little mittens "Jouluyo," Rajaton's second holiday CD, with seven new and seven familiar Christmas songs, in both Finnish and English! Our favorites are of course the English selections, a joyous, surprising "Hark the herald angels sing," a moving, bluenote "The little drummer boy," and Soila Sariola's arrangements of Stephen Hatfield's haunting, magical "Lullay" and Howard Blake's "Walking on Air." But don't miss the songs with Finnish titles like Kurt Noack's "Tonttuparaati," Jussi Chydenius and Einari Vuorela's soaring "Kuu Hohtaa," Leri Leskinen and Timo Liiskinen's "Taivaanvalkea" and many others. "Oi jouluyo" gives Finnish lyrics to the classic "O Holy Night" and "Tuo armon valkokyyhky" is Michael Praetorius' "Lo, How a Rose e'er Blooming." "Tonttuparaati" is an amazing Finnish medley of several Christmas tunes, we picked out "Wooden Soldiers on Parade" and others whose titles escape us for the moment. We'll just say that "Jouluyo" is a magical collection that delights on so many levels-don't miss this one! Generous full-color liner notes have all lyrics and info. |