The Sviests folk compilation, featuring new recordings by Latvian artists of not just folk songs, but also songs inspired by Latvian (and other cultures’) folk music, is normally released every other year. Though the previous release – Sviests 8 – was released in 2019, due to the pandemic (with its significant impact on performance and music making) meant that the latest entry in the series – Sviests 9 – was only released in 2022.

Though it was released with a small delay, the Sviests 9 compilation, compiled by the Lauska folk music label, brings together twenty new recordings by both well established and new artists and ensembles.

Along well-known names like Tautumeitas (who perform a modern version of the song ‘Brosnej, puika, tū dzeršonu’ – which originally appeared on their album Dziesmas no Aulejas), and Auļi (who, along with Lithuanian singer Laurita Peleniūte perform ‘Sveteilai’ – or ‘Ciemiņi’) are newer faces such as Pupa, performing the wedding song ‘Taisās kāzas’, and Ududu, performing the Mārtiņi celebration song ‘Mārtiņš kūra uguntiņu’.

Dark folk ensemble Rāva present ‘Ceļa māte’, singer Elīna Līce performs the Latvian folk song ‘Nāk rudentiņis’, folk / blues / bluegrass group Rahu the Fool offer ‘Daliņa kājas’, and vocalist Katrīna Dimanta sings about bees in ‘Bites dziesma’. Banga sing in Yiddish on ‘Di Bayke’, and Kārlis Rudra Jirgens mixes the kokle with electronic effects on ‘Kokle dub’.

The CD booklet contains detailed information on the artists and the songs, and helps the listener appreciate the many ways Latvian folk music and culture can be interpreted – both in traditional ways, but also with more modern elements – like jazz and electronic music. The booklet also notes the appearance of many new solo artists (perhaps a consequence of pandemic restrictions – unable to meet others, many musicians had to perform on their own).

For further information, please visit the Lauska website

Sviests 9

Lauska

1. Saucējas – Es iesēju kanapīt’
2. Laurita Peleniūte & Auļi – Sveteilai/ Ciemiņi
3. Rīgas saksofonu kvartets un Valdis Muktupāvels – Visādi putni
4. Kalnejas – Raganiņa
5. Svīres – Velc, pelīte
6. Edgars Zilberts pied. Staņislavs Judins – Izlietus
7. TKP – Suņi
8. FOLK 7 – Vonogu dancs
9. Tautumeitas – Brosnej, puika, tū dzeršonu
10. Rahu the Fool – Daliņa kājas
11. Elīna Līce – Nāk rudentiņis
12. Ududu – Mārtiņš kūra uguntiņu
13. Zane Sniķere – Atvasaras vakarā. Iemīlies.
14. Rāva – Ceļa māte
15. Jūra – Oj, agri
16. Dārdi – Raiba govs
17. Pupa – Taisās kāzas
18. Katrīna Dimanta – Bites dziesma
19. Banga – Di Bayke
20. Kārlis Rudra Jirgens – Kokle dub

Like many millions around the world, Jānis Čakars was horrified by the events of February 24, 2022. On that day, Russia began an unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine that not only shocked, but also changed the world. A terrifying reality began to set in – if Russia was willing to brutally invade one former Soviet republic, then other former Soviet republics (Moldova, Georgia, the Baltic States), perhaps even former Soviet satellite states like Poland and Bulgaria, would likely be next.

Čakars, a professor of communication and digital media at Neumann University, is of Latvian descent, and, having taught Latvian history for ten years at the Philadelphia Latvian School, was well aware of the horrors of Soviet occupation. Like many, feelings of helplessness grew as the grim events unfolded, but Čakars quickly realized that there was still something he could do to help.

When not teaching, Čakars is also a musician, and has played guitar in multiple punk and hardcore bands in Philadelphia for decades. He has played with groups like Citizens Arrest and Grey C.E.L.L., among others. Čakars is also no stranger to activism – he, along with bandmate Derik Moore, compiled a Black Lives Matter inspired collection called 19 Notes on a Broken System in 2020. In a few short days, using his existing contacts in the music scene as well as reaching out to Ukrainian artists, Čakars helped compile Band Together: A Benefit for Ukraine – an album that contains songs by both American and Ukrainian performers. All proceeds from the album go to the charity Razom.

Though many of the songs on the album are in a punk or hardcore style, Band Together has an eclectic assortment of bands, with many styles represented, like folk, post-punk, metal, and others. Ukrainian artists on the record include Morwan, Kat, Pušča, Terrorscum, Sasha Boole, Death Pill, and The Raw. Many well-known American bands participated as well, including punk singer-songwriter Ted Leo, who provided the new song ‘The Clearing of the Land’ (inspired by the invasion), as well as groups like noise rock stalwarts Unsane, Brooklyn-based The World/Inferno Friendship Society, and many representatives of the Philadelphia scene, like Erin Incoherent, FRIGHT, and Cross Control. Čakars’ own bands Grey C.E.L.L. and Citizens Arrest also feature on the compilation. Though some of the songs were written long before recent events, some of the songs are eerily prescient, like the World Inferno song with its lyric ‘We got our dignity, we fought for that’ (bringing to mind the Ukrainian ‘Revolution of Dignity’), as well as Citizens Arrest’s song about nuclear war.

It was fortunate that Čakars could get recordings from some of the Ukrainian artists in time – events being so fast moving in Ukraine, many of the groups’ members have been displaced and some have enlisted in the effort to defend their homeland. Members of Death Pill, the first all-female punk band in Ukraine, were forced to flee, while Kat, from Kharkiv, are enduring relentless, indiscriminate bombing, Sasha Boole is serving in the army, and members of Pušča have been helping the effort by weaving camouflage nets.

Čakars is also planning a cassette release of the album in the near future, with possible releases on vinyl and CD as well. As there has been a lot of interest in this project, there may also be a possibility of a Volume 2, with artists from additional areas, like the Baltic States. Concerts featuring some of the American groups on Band Together are also planned, initially in the Philadelphia area, but potentially elsewhere. There has been a lot of interest in the project, and there have been articles in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Punk News, NPR, and other sites, and Čakars has an interview planned with the Latvian magazine Ir.

With his decades of performing in punk bands, Čakars even inspired a Latvian band to name themselves after him. The band – Jānis Čakars – was active in the 2010s, but appears to have gone on hiatus.

Čakars is also the editor of a forthcoming book – Information Wars in the Baltic States: Russia’s Long Shadow – which was completed right as the Russian army was massing on the the Ukrainian border.

Band Together: A Benefit for Ukraine is available as a digital download via Bandcamp.

Band Together : A Benefit for Ukraine

Track listing:

1. Morwan – Где-то там вдали

2. Ted Leo – The Clearing of the Land

3. Кат – Атлантида

4. The World/Inferno Friendship Society – Cats Are Not Lucky Creatures

5. Citizens Arrest – Death Threat

6. Death Pill – Расцарапаю Ебало

7. Unsane – Cracked Up

8. The Raw – 3a ветром

9. Grey C.E.L.L. – Opinion Piece

10. Пуща (Pušča) – Jardin de Verre Brisé

11. FRIGHT – Hands Claw Open Eyes

12. Terrorscum – Battered Knees

13. Under Attack – Mentally Collapsed

14. Cross Control – Diadem

15. Erin Incoherent – Songs for the Revolution

16. Sasha Boole – Плющ (Ivy)

Review of book by Alfrēds Stinkuls, Mati sarkanā vējā (Hair blowing in the red wind), Lauska, 2020

Thirty years have passed since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but, in certain ways, it seems like a lifetime ago. It is difficult to imagine a world that included things like the Berlin Wall, the Baltic countries under occupation, and the Iron Curtain. However, thirty years in the overall course of history is a very brief period, and things that seemed to be in the rear-view mirror may very well unexpectedly appear again. This is especially true today, when what was recently thought to be unthinkable has become all too real.

That is why Alfrēds Stinkuls’ autobiography, entitled Mati sarkanā vējā, about growing up and living in occupied Latvia is particularly timely. Released in 2020, the book covers his life until his emigration westwards from Soviet occupied Latvia in 1986 and provides a revealing view of what everyday life was like in the 1970s and 80s in Latvia, what ordinary people had to endure and suffer through.

What makes Stinkuls’ story particularly compelling is Stinkuls is a self-described ‘hippie’. He had long hair and a beard, which was highly unusual and frowned upon in the Soviet Union, which had little tolerance for anything that resembled dissent and/or free thinking. This got Stinkuls a lot of unwanted attention through the years, and the book is also a story of perseverance against the soul crushing ideology of the authoritarian government. The book also includes many pictures and fascinating document facsimiles.

Stinkuls also kept meticulous notes on the events in his life (either that or he has an exceptional memory), as the book not only includes many detailed episodes from his life but seems to include notes on every concert he ever went to. Not just concerts in Latvia, but attending concerts in Leningrad, such B. B. King in in 1986 (the book also includes a facsimile of a souvenir postcard from the concert, where Stinkuls wrote down the names of all the musicians in King’s band), as well as the North Texas University Jazz Lab Band.

Though the book covers his run-ins with the Soviet authorities (Stinkuls spent time not only in jail on trumped up charges of ‘hooliganism’, but also in a psychiatric institution, where he ended up after the army commission determined him unfit to join the Soviet army), it also covers the absurd, Kafkaesque bureaucracy of the era. One almost comical incident is when Stinkuls’ Shure record player starts picking up a Soviet propaganda broadcast (a jamming signal), and the author goes to the nearby radio station to complain that he could not listen to records. To their credit, the radio technicians investigated why this was happening and suggested Stinkuls put the record player in an iron box (which helped, but only slightly).

More serious was the discovery of a listening device in his apartment – very well hidden in the ceiling with wiring going through the balcony. The Soviet authorities, of course, discover that their active device has been tampered with, and then approach Stinkuls. However, in an absurd twist to the story, the authorities cannot say that it was a listening device (since they were prohibited), so they accuse Stinkuls of damaging a ‘fire alarm wire’. Thus begins one of the more terrifying sections of the book, as Stinkuls and his girlfriend Inguna Galviņa are routinely harassed and intimidated.

Though many of the episodes described in the book give a bleak impression of life in Latvia, there are still many positive and hopeful moments in the book, some even humorous. Stinkuls and many of his friends found sanctuary in the ‘Mežuplejas’ property (located in the central Latvian region of Vidzeme, near the village of Skujene). Many of the events of the book take place on this property, and it becomes a regular gathering place for Stinkuls and like-minded individuals for the next decade and a half to enjoy a bit of freedom, away from the prying eyes of the Soviet authorities.

In the 1980s, it becomes clear to Stinkuls and Galviņa that the situation has become hopeless and untenable, and they both choose to depart Soviet Latvia in one of the few ways possible, to wed a foreigner in a (presumably fictitious? The author does not clearly specify) marriage and emigrate. Inguna is the first to go, marrying a relative of Stinkuls’, and then Stinkuls himself marries an exiled Latvian woman. The Soviet bureaucracy follows him to the very end, when he is denied departure from his original embarkation point of Tallinn, and he then journeys to Leningrad where he is finally allowed to board a train to Helsinki (along with his 11 bags).

Though the story ends here, the reader is left wanting to know more about what happened to Stinkuls after he left Latvia. Did he ever return? How did he make it to California (where he currently lives)? What happened to Mežuplejas? Perhaps the author will continue the story someday.

Mati sarkanā vējā tells the occasionally ordinary, occasionally extraordinary story of Alfrēds Stinkuls and the experience of living in Soviet Latvia as a long haired, bearded hippie. Full of extensively detailed anecdotes and stories, as well as many pictures, Stinkuls’ memoir provides a stark reminder of an era that, while many decades in the past, still reverberates today. Stinkuls’ stories of being a brave, free-thinking individual in an oppressive system are both inspirational and a cautionary tale – that the past is never truly in the past.