I can't really tell you much about Hanna & Kerttu, I don't
even know much about Hanna & Kerttu. Their pages are encrypted in mystic fantasies
without any hard facts, so to guess... I'm going to go with my gut. They're a
progressing once folk, now electronica duo from Finland; but maybe Germany or
Norway at the same time. It doesn't really matter all that needs to be said is
their musical creations sound like the kind of musical creations people would
like to hear, it's what I like hearing anyway.
"Black is Back in Style" is a
cover of Spencer Krug, who released it under one of his monikers Moonface. Now
what I like about Hanna & Kerttu is they're not afraid to try something different.
How I came across their music was by randomly watching a live performance of a
new song with about 74 views, laden in heavy electronics; a stark contrast to
their acoustic based "Drunken Dancer" which to my surprise has over
200,000 views on YouTube, I mean, I’m not surprised in a negative way, I’m just
surprised they’re so much of an anomaly with the benchmark 1k Facebook likes
with a YouTube video with other 200k views released many years ago, to me
there's something inbetween and before which I’m missing.
What they do differently is really what makes this cover special, and their own as opposed to a blatant word for word, note for note cover. They've slowed it down, added the infamous Nordic reverberation and layered vocals noting atmosphere, pleasant simple atmosphere which so many of today's artist’s lack. The vocals by, at a punt Hanna, they're elegant in the Bjork fashion much like Iceland's best kept secret Vok, specifically Margrét Rán's vocal. If you give something different in a cover it makes everything far more interesting. Very impressive from the Finland-Germany-somewhere duo.
Edward Gibson
