Opening Concert: "Estonian Groove"
The music and city festival Station Narva will open with the concert "Estonian Groove" on Thursday, 3 September, in the main hall of the Rugodiv Cultural Centre in Narva. Decades-old funk, soul and disco from the era of Estonian popular music will be performed by beloved singers Rita Ray and Robert Linna, together with the vocal trio TripleTone and the Narva City Symphony Orchestra.
The special project, curated by Funk Embassy Records, will breathe new life into musical gems that, in the 1970s and 1980s, could be heard both in the first local discotheques, such as the underground Sagadi Soul Club, and in live performances everywhere from the Viru variety theatre to Linnahall.
During the Soviet era, a significant part of so-called groove music – funk, disco, soul, fusion and yacht rock – was classified as easy listening, the most favoured form of popular music in the Soviet Union. Although it lacked the outspoken spirit of protest associated with punk, its Western character and intoxicating escapism helped pave the way towards freedom. Despite censorship and technical limitations, something was created here that sounded at once innocent and desirable, modern and timeless.
At the "Estonian Groove" concert, the grooves and melodies that helped chip away at the Iron Curtain will be reinterpreted by beloved singers Rita Ray and Robert Linna, who grew up in free Estonia, together with the vocal trio TripleTone and the Narva City Symphony Orchestra. The programme will feature original compositions by Estonian songwriters, some of which were recorded semi-secretly at night in the first studio of Eesti Raadio, as well as versions of Western songs that remained shelved for years due to content deemed unsuitable by the authorities or because of the dissident status of the artists who performed them.
The audience can expect songs such as Gunnar Graps' "Tühjad pihud", Apelsin's "Aeg ei peatu", Marju Kuut's "Kui tahad olla hea", Els Himma's "Kesköö" (a cover of "Midnight Is the Time" by Demis Roussos) and Tõnis Mägi & Music Seif's "Sa haara kinni mu käest", as well as the cult hit "Stopp, seisku aeg!" (a cover of "I See Red" by Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA) by Velly Joonas and the Lasnamäe-based band Vstretša, which was once confined to the archives and is now played by DJs around the world. Rita Ray will also perform a selection of her own original material in the spirit of blue-eyed soul and classic disco.
The concert is presented in collaboration with Funk Embassy Records and is largely based on tracks featured on the record label's Groove of ESSR compilation album series.