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Multi-instrumentalist Tapio Mattlar has played in several bands for a total of more than 50 years. At first, his instrument was the electric bass. Gradually, the guitar, sitar, hurdy-gurdy, viking lyre and numerous other stringed instruments as well as shaman and Native American drums entered the repertoire. Tapio started recording his first solo album at the barn attic of Harju traditional rural landscape farm at the end of 2019, after first learning how to use the recording software. Now three albums have been released and new music is created every winter.
– I record my music so that I compose it at the same time. When I start a new song, I usually just have an idea for it, which starts to take shape in different directions during the recording as I add new tracks and instruments. I often wonder about the end result myself, and sometimes I feel like I'm just a bystander in what kind of melodies and musical ideas my subconscious produces. I don't always like the end result so much that I would like to publish the song, so the new album has always been compiled, in my opinion, with the most successful takes from the previous winter's recordings. I only have time to make music between November and April, because the farm employs me full-time for six months, Tapio says.
The latest album, like the previous ones, is mainly instrumental music, but there are also two vocal songs. The album's opening track, A pencil-shaped stone, was written by Tapio together with Auri Antinranta. Auri has previously sung in the band Tuvalu and now makes her own music under the name Antinranta. The collaboration song came about when Tapio sent the background music to Auri and asked her to add a song melody and lyrics. Antinranta, a futurist and artist, was interested in Mattlar's unique traditional music and work for the preservation of biodiversity. Antinranta works on environmental themes through media art, and the inspiration for the song's lyrics was found in reflections on social and environmental change.
In the second vocal song, How to stop loss of biodiversity?, the lyrics were written by Tapio. The performer is "The Rural Choir", which laments how difficult it is to stop the loss of biodiversity from the city, and the song ends with a statement: it will be left to us countrymen. The song also praises Tero Mustonen, who received the world's most important environmental prize, the Goldman Prize, and has set an excellent example in the work of restoring nature.
