by Bob Tarte
This seamless instrumental disc by Sibelius Academy professor Maria Kalaniemi delivers an object lesson on the expansiveness and expressiveness of the accordion. She transmutes a local melody into an Argentinean tango on one cut and mixes in a thumb piano on another, courtesy of Ottopasuuna's Kimmo Pohjonen, but the willingness to bend boundaries takes nothing away from the essential Finnish nature of the material. Kalaniemi's eggheaded vision coupled with a virtuoso's discipline results in intensely compelling, wonderfully realized compositions.