It was late one Jāņi (or was it really early?) several years ago. The Latvian-Americans around the bonfire were beginning to dwindle, their steady offering of folk songs interrupted by longer and longer spells of silence. All at once, a group of Latvians from Latvia broke into a sloppy rendition of “Vecpiebalgas cūku māte,” a favorite song from the 1995 Alumīnija cūka album by the pop jokers Labvēlīgais Tips. I’ve always liked that song. It’s among the songs I wish the group had put on Tipa labākās dziesmas, released this past April.

Labvēlīgais Tips has managed to find an audience in Latvia that each year awaits April 1, when—in the spirit of the day—the group has released its new album. I suppose it’s only fitting that in this fifth year the group would offer a “best of” album. Surprisingly, Labvēlīgais Tips isn’t as well known among Latvians in North America. Perhaps it’s because the group has never toured Latvian colonies here. Perhaps it’s because the group is a post-1991 phenomenon, while some Latvians on this side of the Atlantic still only have memories of Jauns Mēness, Jumprava and Pērkons. Perhaps it’s because a certain amount of the group’s material takes a somewhat sardonic view of life in Latvia, often seeming like a “you had to be there” joke.

I suppose the same could be said of Čikāgas piecīši. A Latvian from Latvia might have difficulty understanding the cultural relevance of the piecīši. For us, it just makes sense because we’ve lived it.

And it’s that difference that makes Labvēlīgais Tips so welcome. The group performs songs that, even for someone not well-acquainted with daily life in Latvia, provide a window into the ironies of existence. Songs such as “Pumpa,” about a man’s troubles with a pimple on his rear end, are prima facie funny, but also are a sad commentary on life. The main character in the group’s songs often seems to be the schlemiel, in other words, you or me.

Western listeners might better understand a song such as “Mans brālis Čikāgā,” sung from the perspective of a Latvian in exile who laments not being in the homeland, but questioning whether it’s not all for the best, given conditions in Latvia today. The lyrics make one stop and think—and I wish Labvēlīgais Tips would perform more such songs.

All but three of the 17 songs on Tipa labākās dziesmas were originally heard on the four earlier albums, Alumīnija cūka (1995), Pilots Antons Šmits (1996), Pumpa (1997) and Tā, lūk, man iet (1998). Taken from Alumīnija cūka are “Alumīnija cūka,” “Džins ar toniku”, “Koki,” “Lodziņš” and the popular “Zivis.” From Pilots Antons Šmits we get “Omnibuss” and “Aija” (renamed from the original “Aijai”). From Pumpa come “Atlantīda,” “Mans brālis Čikāgā,” “Pumpa” and “Šī nav tā dziesma.” And from Tā, lūk, man iet there are “Desmitais tramvajs,” “Princese un Cūkuģīmis” and “Tā, lūk, man iet.” Three songs—“Tu saki Jā,” “Kas tā dara” and “Lai”—are new.

Musically, Labvēlīgais Tips seems at home in the pop genre, but floats easily into schlager, rock and a few other musical forms—whatever suits the mood. At the core of the group is Andris Freidenfelds, who also is known as a morning disc jockey on Radio SWH.

If you’re familiar with the originals, you’ll soon appreciate that the “best of” versions are not just lifted from old masters. Instead, these are new recordings, often adding new sounds or twists.

In an interview with the daily newspaper Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze shortly after the album appeared, Elita Mīlgrāve, director of the MICREC record company, suggested that the popularity of Labvēlīgais Tips comes from the good-natured humor of their songs. She suggests that the songs don’t have a deep subtext, nor are they meant to be. One could argue, however, that Labvēlīgais Tips has struck a chord that resonates in listeners precisely because their songs sometimes don’t need much thought to understand. They are songs to which a listener could easily answer: “Ain’t that the truth!” But perhaps that’s over-analyzing Labvēlīgais Tips.

Latvian writers have spent much of the 20th century in their own or in Soviet company, cut off from Western literary developments. Now they are catching up with a vengeance, as demonstrated in "New Latvian Fiction," an issue of The Review of Contemporary Fiction produced with the support of Soros Foundation Latvia.

Reading this volume (meticulously guest edited by Nora Ikstēna and Rita Laima Krieviņa) is a bit like a jog with the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland—a breathless, exhilarating and sometimes confusing experience.

Some stories can be completely understood only from within the culture; Pauls Bankovskis’ "The Week of Golden Silence," for example, hinges on a children’s rhyme that loses something in the translation. The story portrays love as a child’s game; a bet of silence leads to the realization by two lovers that, really, "There’s nothing to say."

Several authors are engaged in late-blooming love affairs with post-modern literary techniques. In "Beckett is Alive: Texts to Myself," Guntis Berelis speculates on knowledge and reality: "If we assume that Beckett isn’t dead then we can never be completely convinced that he isn’t dying at this very moment … Beckett is continually dying." Aivars Ozoliņš’ "Tale No. 13" is a playful and ultimately exhausting set of variations on a story; literature is a game to this author, who claims that words "have a hollow centre." Jānis Vēveris takes it one step further—his story "Eventide" begins as poetic stream of consciousness but ultimately turns on itself and on its narrator, telling him that his cleverness and facility are merely the failure of his art.

Other stories have a deep and sensual connection to the real, as opposed to the literary, world. Andra Neiberga’s "Summer Log (The Zone)" is a slow, quiet meditation on the city and the country, encompassing the death of the village and of rural life in Latvia: "In the city my soul runs a chronic high fever and has an irregular pulse," while "in the countryside there is no fear of death." An excerpt from Gundega Repše’s "Stigmata" appears to be a realistic story told through the dialogue of argumentative travellers; it acquires mythological overtones in the course of their journey to what may be the end of the world. God becomes a fellow traveller—the ambivalent and sometimes irrational God of the dainas who is not necessarily in a position to help: "You’re old and tired, Your knees are made of shadows and Your hair is made of twilight, Your chest is the desert and Your genitals have dried up…You tyrant of chaos, You old elephant…"

Dream and reality mix in Aija Lace’s "The Stairs," which recounts how a woman’s refusal, in childhood, to follow a dream leads to its malignant opposite in later life, and perhaps to death. In "Pleasures of the Saints" by Nora Ikstena, the two lovers Theresa and Augustine, two raindrops in a round bed, tell each other their dreams. Martins Zelmenis’ story "Storm Approaching" is a day in the life and also a life in a day; the details of a farm woman’s life fuse with the larger elements of myth and folklore.

"The Flying Fish" by Rimants Ziedonis (son of the poet Imants Ziedonis) is a mischievous skein of literary invention that defies description. At the outer fringe of fantasy, Arvis Kolmanis’ "Veronica, the Schoolgirl" takes place in some future or parallel Latvia where men carry vaguely illicit "motors" in their pockets and women form what seem to be sexual liaisons with white slug-like organisms called "Sophias."

These stories demonstrate a characteristically Latvian love of the unexpected simile, of the metaphor that delights. Among the most artfully deployed are those of Jānis Einfelds, who is a sort of enfant terrible of Latvian letters. His stories—"Cucumber Aria," "The Wonderful Bird," "Fate," "Etude with a Bullet," "Nice Guy Moon" and "Dundega Mornings"—are reminiscent of the blunt grace of Aleksandrs Čaks, their random brutalities overlaying a bitter romance.

To several authors, words themselves have become suspect. Bankovskis alleges that "talking makes no sense anyway; a person can only harm himself by uttering words, because in response he is barraged by a reciprocal flood of words that literally knock him to the ground." Have Latvians found their own words only to abandon them so quickly? Fortunately there seems to be no ebb in the flow of words coming from Latvian writers, and the stories that claim to distrust words are by no means the shortest in this invigorating collection.

(Editor’s note: This article originally appeared on the SVEIKS.com site.)

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.