FEATURE:
Spotlight
PHOTO CREDIT: Mia Tohver
quite new to my ears, I wanted to spend some time with Duo Ruut. This is an Estonia duo of Ann-Lisett Rebane and Katariina Kivi. Even if they have been performing together for a number of years, their name and music is perhaps not as widely known as it should be. I am going to end with a review of their fabulous new album, Ilmateade. It is one that I would encourage people to seek out. Before that, I will bring in a couple of interviews. I will start with a deep interview from Rhythm Passport published last month. I am really interested in learning more about Duo Ruut. In terms of Estonian music, we do not have that many examples of artists from that nation who are well known. There is a richness to the music scene there that we need to explore more:
“In Estonia, the weather isn’t background noise. It’s narrative. The long, dim winters tighten your world into a kind of tunnel vision. The brief, ecstatic summers feel like a reward for having made it through. And in between, during those awkward and indecisive weeks of spring or autumn, you get stuck in limbo. One day it’s T-shirt weather; the next, you’re digging out your winter coat again. You leave the house with confidence and return damp, cold, and full of existential doubt. That inevitably shapes how people behave, how they write, how they make music.
So maybe it wasn’t by chance that when we met Ann-Lisett Rebane and Katariina Kivi, the two minds and four hands behind Duo Ruut, Tallinn was caught in one of those very Estonian mood swings. It was early April during Tallinn Music Week. After a couple of freakishly warm days when temperatures had climbed close to 20 degrees, snow had fallen overnight, sending festival-goers back into scarves and boots, weaving through puddles and ghost-traced tramlines in Telliskivi.
“Our new album is called The Weather Report – in Estonian, Ilma Teade – and it’s our second LP,” debuted Ann-Lisett. “We’ve had one full album and one EP before this, and it’s full of songs we’re really excited to share.”
The title might seem deliberate, but it wasn’t entirely planned. “It was kind of a joke at first,” she continued. “We’d say, ‘Oh, let’s call the album The Weather Report,’ because it sounded so silly in the beginning. But in the end, it made sense, it has a meaning behind it.”
“Yeah, as time went on and we were making the songs, we started to realise that most of the songs talk about the weather,” Katariina added. “Which is, I think, a very Estonian thing as well…”
The name only came once everything else was in place. “The title came as one of the last things, I would say,” Katariina explained. “When all the songs were ready. It wasn’t decided beforehand to write songs about the weather, but…”
It turns out album’s theme also surfaced on its own, gradually and without planning. “The album consists of songs that we’ve written over the last four-ish years,” said Ann-Lisett. “And during that time, the weather just kept showing up, maybe because it’s always there, shaping how we feel, even if we don’t realise it.”
That timeline stretches back to 2019, when Duo Ruut released their debut LP Tuule Sõnad, followed by the Kulla Kerguseks EP in 2021. “Quite soon after the release of the EP, we started writing this album,” Katariina recalled. “It’s like a collection of all the places we have been in the last four, five years.”
The songs, scattered across time and geography, slowly gathered into shape. “I would say the first ideas of different songs have come from many, many different places,” Ann-Lisett added. “One idea came to us in a soundcheck in a small town in Portugal. One song we wrote for our sound engineer’s wedding. And so it’s like a collection of our moods and memories and travels and experiences.”
That sensitivity to mood runs throughout Duo Ruut’s music. Some songs are lyrical, others simply hang in a certain emotional atmosphere. “We have a few songs on this album that aren’t about anything in particular,” Ann-Lisett noted. “We just wanted to capture a certain mood or feeling.”
“Sometimes it’s not really about the weather itself,” Katariina agreed, “but about how you react to it, what kind of feelings it brings out. For example, we literally sing about rain, but it’s more about the emotion the music carries than the rain itself.”
So much of Duo Ruut’s identity has been shaped not just by Estonia itself, but by the act of carrying Estonia with them, on tour, in interviews, on stage, in the way they frame their music. When asked why so many Estonian musicians are starting to make waves internationally, Katariina offered a candid reflection. “I think it’s to do with our collective need to prove ourselves, to put Estonia on the map. We’re a small country, and that’s part of our identity.”
Ann-Lisett agreed. “Yeah, and a lot of Estonian artists really want people to know we’re from Estonia. If you’re from a big country, it might not matter so much. But for us, it’s almost like a mission.”
“Not just where we’re from,” Katariina continued, “but also what it’s like here. We’re always explaining: ‘We’re from Northern Europe, we’ve got the sea, the forests, the weather…’”
Ann-Lisett laughed. “We really end up being kind of like cultural ambassadors, constantly filling people in about Estonia because many still don’t know where it is or what it’s like.”
There’s structural support behind it too. Katariina pointed out, “We’ve had really good managers helping us with music export. That’s a huge part of it.”
The music pulls its weight too. “The kind of folk-meets-world sound we do really travels,” Ann-Lisett noted. “It fits into all sorts of settings, not just folk festivals. We’ve played really varied events. That’s been true for other Estonian acts too, like Puuluup, Mari Kalkun…”
“There’s a new wave coming through as well,” Katariina chimed in. “Puuluup and Mari Kalkun are already well established, and Trad.Attack! are wrapping up something new. We’ll probably be hearing more from them soon. We were kind of at the start of that surge in younger traditional bands in Estonia. A lot of others came up around the same time as us”.
The second interview is from ERR. They spoke with Duo Ruut after they played several shows at Glastonbury last month. A huge achievement and a dream for them, it must have been very special seeing them on the stage. I do hope that they get booked for more U.K. festivals soon enough. Their fanbase and name is building here. For anyone who has not discovered Duo Ruut yet, I would encourage you to follow them on social media and listen to Ilmateade:
“There were even a couple of Estonians there who were very touched to hear an Estonian artist at Glastonbury," said Rebane's bandmate Katariina Kivi, adding that the audience for their second concert was almost as warm as the Glastonbury weather.
"We sold quite a few records," Kivi said. "It was also nice that when people were walking around the festival area between concerts, they recognized us, thanked us for the show and said that they had already recommended us to their friends."
"Some said that our concert was the highlight of Glastonbury for them. Even after the concert, people came up to talk to us, ask us about the instruments and the music, and we signed autographs on our records."
Among the new fans Duo Ruut gained at the festival was British comedian Robin Ince, who was so enamored by their performance, he even wrote a poem about them and posted a video of it on Instagram. According to Katariina Kivi, they also had a warm conversation with Cerys Matthews of Welsh indie band Catatonia.
Ann-Lisett Rebane admitted that although things turned out well in the end, she couldn't help but feel a few nerves before going on stage to such a huge crows.
"At festivals of this size, you usually have a relatively short time to prepare. You have to get everything ready in a few minutes – a quick line-check and then you're on stage," Rebane explained. "That's why we thought it was important to travel with our own sound technician this time, and thanks to them we felt much more confident."
Ann-Lisett Rebane admitted that although things turned out well in the end, she couldn't help but feel a few nerves before going on stage to such a huge crows.
"At festivals of this size, you usually have a relatively short time to prepare. You have to get everything ready in a few minutes – a quick line-check and then you're on stage," Rebane explained. "That's why we thought it was important to travel with our own sound technician this time, and thanks to them we felt much more confident."
Katariina Kivi described playing at Glastonbury as an "important milestone" in the band's career, a sentiment Rebane agrees with.
"It's still hard to believe that it actually happened – to perform with such big names at the same festival, to do 3 concerts and experience this whole event. It's hard to put it into words," Rebane said.
Next up for Duo Ruut is Denmark's Roskilde Festival on July 2. Fans in Estonia will have chance to hear one of the band's compositions during the Song and Dance Festival on July 3. The band will then perform a full set at the Viljandi Folk Music Festival on July 26”.
I am ending with a review of Ilmateade from The Guardian. The fact that the album features other Estonian musicians shows what depth there is to the scene. How incredible and distinct these musicians are. From here, I think Duo Ruut will record more albums and embark on bigger tour dates. I would like to see them live one day. Although I have only just discovered them, the seeds have already been planted. I am compelled to learn a lot more and follow their careers:
“Duo Ruut (Square Duo) are Ann-Lisett Rebane and Katariina Kivi, two Estonian musicians who write, sing and play facing each other, their instrument being a single kannel (an Estonian zither). Playing with the texts and repetitive motifs of runo song, a form of traditional oral poetry specific to the Baltic Finnic languages, their music holds a glistening minimalism in its rhythms and a crossover sheen in its sound. Rebane and Kivi’s voices help – often sweet, but also sharp when required.
Their ambitious second album Ilmateade (Weather Report) explores the powerful yet under-sung connections between the weather and emotion. It begins with the minute-long Intro, a track that builds gorgeously on the scratchy, dying notes of their 2021 EP, Kulla Kerguseks (From the Lightness of Gold), implying both continuity and metamorphosis.
Then we’re in Udu (Fog), lulled along on thick, beautiful clouds of shifting time signatures, before Vastlalaul (The Sledding Song) slows and speeds, glossily, through the snow. These songs are rhythmically complex and have solid, ancient roots, but fans of ambient, Balearic dreaminess and the softer sides of indie pop and psych-folk will find woozy comforts here.
Good entry points include the earwormy melancholia of Vilud Ilmad (Gloomy Weather) and the itchy handclaps, in five beats to the bar, propelling us through Suvi Rannas (Summer on the Beach), in which we’re told, in Estonian, of days hot with horseflies and a sky broad and bare.
Other Estonian artists brought into the fold provide different depths. Guitarist Erki Pärnoja’s solos swirl around the women’s wordless melodies on Interlude, while poet EiK 2509 adds spoken-word contributions to the mesmerising Enne Ööd (Nightfall). All together, these 12 tracks create a hypnotic shipping forecast transplanted to the Baltic Sea, carrying us along on its eddying tides”.
I am going to leave things there. Go and follow Duo Ruut. I think they are primed for many more successful years in the music industry. I really love what they are doing. A phenomenal sound hard to compare with any other act, so many people will wonder…
WHAT their next step is.
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Follow Duo Ruut
