If you’re Latvian and grew up in the United States or Canada, perhaps you can remember all the times people thought you said you speak Latin rather than Latvian. After all, everyone’s heard of Latin. It’s Latvian that’s the obscure language, right? It’s for all those times we wish we’d had an album like Odi Et Amo to serve as a comeback to our errant acquaintances. “Here,” you could have said. “Listen to this. It’s a bunch of Latvians singing in Latin. Just to confuse you even more.”

And that’s what Odi Et Amo is: a bunch of Latvians singing in Latin. But this is no ordinary bunch. Its producer, singer and musician Uģis Prauliņš working with the well-known and respected Rīga Dome Boys Choir.

The 13 tracks on this album take the choir, directed by Mārtiņš Klišāns, in a new direction. These aren’t the sweet and thoughtful compositions often performed by the choir. Rather, Prauliņš takes spiritual texts and with his musical arrangements moves the listener through a range of emotions, from reflection to anger, perhaps even to fear.

The album’s title track, “Odi Et Amo” (I Hate and Love), is taken from a short work by the Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus, who died about 50 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. The poem speaks of the conflict within one’s soul and sets the tone for the rest of the album:

Odi et amo, Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
Nescio, sed fieri sentio et exrucior.
(I hate and love. And if you ask me why,
I have no answer, but I discern, can feel,
my senses rooted in eternal torture.)

Three compositions on the album are based on verses from the Biblia Vulgata, the biblical translation by Eusebius Hieronymus, the Balkan-born linguist, scientist and philosopher who lived from about 340 to 450 and who at one point was headed down a path that could have seen him chosen pope.

It is one of these compositions, “Quare Fremuerunt Gentes,” that is the most surprising. The track begins with men’s voices intoning the title only to suddenly have the boys launch into a rap, accompanied by heavy, driving guitar and bass chords. The piece, based on Psalms 2 and 74, even has the boys screaming, something they probably couldn’t get away with in the Rīga Dome Church. Played loud, this track also is perhaps the most unsettling on the album … as art should be.

It is followed by the almost Enya-sounding homily “O Beata Trinitas,” a proper piece with which to settle one’s nerves.

In addition to the Biblia Vulgata, Prauliņš drew from other historical material, some by well-known literary or religious figures, some not. For example, “Ad Dianam” presents fragments from a work by English poet Thomas Campion (1567-1620), who used the character of Diana to praise Queen Elizabeth. “Pangue Lingua” comes from a hymn by 13th century theologian and philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas. And the “Chorus Novae Ierusalem” is from an Easter hymn, penned by Bishop Fulbert of Chartres, sung during the Crusades.

One favorite on this album is “Qui Creavit Coelum,” a song originating in the Nunnery of St. Mary in Chester about God’s creation of the world. As the choir sings the refrain, “Lully, lully, lu,” you almost have to smile, something that’s otherwise difficult given the seriousness of the rest of this album.

Besides the choir and Prauliņš, who provides narration and vocals as well as performing on keyboards, samplers, the kokle and the fiddle, a number of other musicians and vocalists helped out on this project. They include Armands Alksnis and Arnolds Kārklis on guitars, Arvīds Klišāns on French horn, and Aigars Godiņš, Edgars Janovs, Māra Kalniņa and Mārtiņš Klišāns on vocals. Kalnina, who also performed with the folk group Ilgi, was killed in an automobile accident in late August, just a few months after this album was released.

In conversations we’ve had with people who have listened to this album, it has been suggested that with the proper exposure, Odi Et Amo could raise Latvia’s stock in the music world. Certainly, the fact that it’s in Latin—and not Latvian—opens the album to a wider audience, at least intellectually. We have to agree that it’s worth the effort.

On the three-hour automobile trip to a Jāni celebration in mid-Wisconsin, our passengers included two twenty-something au pairs from Latvia. Figuring they might be starved for the latest music from back home, we took along a few newer compact discs: Prāta Vētra’s Starp divām saulēm, The Satellites’ Piens and, just for kicks, Guntars Račs’ retrospective Dienas. We thought these two young Latvian women especially would be eager to hear the latest Prāta Vētra recording. Nope. “Put in that Račs CD!,” they begged.

Even if you’ve never heard of Guntars Račs, if you’ve listened to popular Latvian music you most likely have heard his song lyrics. Does your CD or tape collection include anything by the group Bet Bet (which includes Račs)? Do you have something by the guitar rockers Līvi? How about something by Igo? Chances are you’ve heard one or more tunes penned by Račs.

Dienas pulls together 16 of Račs’ best-known songs from the past two decades. Most have been released earlier. Songs include:

• “Diena,” performed by Račs himself in a new recording backed by the rest of the Bet Bet crew.
• “Piedod man,” performed by the group Līvi from Liepāja. The track is taken from 1997’s Bailes par zinģēm.
• “Vakara vējā,” performed by Bet Bet with lead vocals by Zigfrīds Muktupāvels.
• “Tikai tā!,” performed by Liepājas brāļi.
• “Vai ar to tev nepietiek,” performed by the pop-rock group Jauns Mēness, led by Ainars Mielavs. Recorded in 1988 when Račs was the drummer for the group.
• “Es esmu vēl dzīvs,” also performed by Jauns Mēness and, like the song above, recorded in 1989 but not previously released.
• “Vējs,” by the long-time group Zodiaks.
• “Pūt, vējiņi,” also by Zodiaks.
• “Ozolam,” another one by Līvi.
• “Dzīve ir viena,” by Olga & Tango.
• “Lietus,” by another long-time group, Credo.
• “Bumerangs,” by Igo (Rodrigo Fomins), another singer from Liepāja whose career is just as notable as Račs’.
• “Vētrasputns,” performed by Varavīksne.
• “Romance,” performed by Neptūns and not previously released.
• “Kapteinis,” performed by the jazz singer Laima Vaikule.
• “Tā ir jānotiek,” performed by Zvaigžnu koris.

“Once about a hundred years ago,” music critic Klāss Vāvere writes in the liner notes, “some journal proclaimed Račs as the new hope of national poetry. Even though I never read poetry journals, I read his verses and concluded: here’s a sensible fellow.”

Reading the lyrics in Dienas (and the liner notes thankfully include them) we encounter simple thoughts wrapped in visions found in nature. For pop songs, it’s a wonderful formula. In the liner notes, Račs explains himself: “The wind blew me here from Liepāja and therefore it’s no wonder that my songs are about the wind, the setting sun and love… I am truly happy about all that is going on with me and around me at the great threshold of the millenium.”

Račs has good reason to be happy. He’s a successful pop song lyricist, he’s a successful drummer (usually performing for Bet Bet), and he’s the successful marketing director for Latvia’s top recording label, MICREC. Raitis Sametis, who produces the music e-zine Kieģelis, has tagged Račs one of the 10 most influential people in the Latvian pop-rock music scene, particularly for his efforts to make Latvian artists known outside of Latvia.

Račs also was honored during the Latvian recording industry’s “Gada Balva 98” awards ceremony in April when the song “Par to (raudāja māte)” was named the best schlager style song of last year. Račs wrote the lyrics and Raimonds Pauls the music. The tune perhaps is best recalled as the theme song for the 1998 film by director Jānis Streičs, Likteņdzirnas. We almost wish the song was on this album, if for no other reason than to offer a counterpoint to the generally fast-paced tunes.

As for the songs that do appear on the album, about the only one worth criticizing is “Diena.” The song itself is good, but the studio performance here is embellished by a couple of special effects that don’t add anything to the presentation and seem to be included only because digital technology allows them.

This one point aside, Dienas is a worthy addition to any collection of recorded Latvian music.