First Estonian animated film, The Adventures of Juku the Dog, dates back to 1931. However, Estonian animation really started to put down roots more than twenty years later, along with the establishment of our first stop-motion studio Nukufilm (1957) and a separate studio for hand-drawn animation (the predecessor of today’s Estonian Joonisfilm, 1971) – both studios acting as animation subsidiaries for the Estonian film studio Tallinnfilm.

It was in the early 1970s, when the Tallinnfilm animation studios employed a youthful bunch of skilled Estonian artists and cartoonists. For Soviet authorities, the animated films were presumed to be "a kids' stuff", therefore less censored. Indeed, the main incentive the studios' offered was creative freedom – a thing more scarce and valuable in the Soviet era than color TV or nylon stockings. Soon, these young artists begun to introduce contemporary themes and ironic depictions of everyday life to Estonian animation, along with pop-art aesthetics and even psychedelic imagery. 

Fragment from "Flight" (1973, director Rein Raamat, artists Avo Paistik and Aili Vint)

Likewise, the composers of animated films found theirselves on a new territory, free to exercise something beyond the routine standards of pop and academic music – to try their hand at the edges of orchestral sonic palette and keyboards of the early synthesizers.

Suddenly, pop art merged pop music, and electric guitars, Rhodes pianos and synthesizers were telling tales of a better future that still hasn’t fully arrived today.

Composers

Across the world, Estonian culture is known for ARVO PÄRT, song festivals... and beyond that there’s a bit of a blank. This compilation is another try to fill it but let’s still start from Pärt. And it’s the sultry twilight side of Pärt – for in the young age of the serene sacred minimalist we meet an ill-healthed but witty trickster who could even play badminton with a violin at an avant garde art performance. He was also adventurous as an animation soundtracker – the decadent surf lounge in Mousehunt and the exotica frolic with piano doodlings in Cameraman Kõps on a Deserted Island sound utterly alien to Soviet music and would influence the Estonian anima-sound to come.

At the helm of Ruja, the national prog rock flagship, REIN RANNAP was the early 1970s’ prime choice to accompany the excursions into animation by hip young artists Leo Lapin and Ando Keskküla. The animations created by them were inspired by psychedelic aesthetics, more dynamic and colourful than their predecessors, also more full of contrasts – their peaks, troughs and turns can also be heard in Rannap’s soundtracks where he could use a broader, jazz and baroque pop oriented sonic palette than in front of a live rock audience. Stark contrasts are also characteristic of Rannap’s own artistic path – from neoclassical ambitions to postmodern follies, with plenty of timeless melodies penned by him in between.  

SVEN GRÜNBERG is the undisputed guru of Estonian film music – an apt title for a devoted Buddhist. For cinematic soundtracks, he is the most prolific as well as the highest esteemed; also the only one with a solo album of animated film themes (Anima 1977-2001 in 2016 by Frotee Records). Thus, this collection features several new mixes of Grünberg’s animation themes by prog prince du jour Jakob Juhkam. Fans of the cult movie Dead Mountaineer’s Hotel will recognise an early version of the haunting Nimetu (Nameless) in the uncanny ululation of Flaxen-Hair and Rosalind.

None funkier cat than TÕNU AARE in our land (and there’s some competition). He’s best know from Apelsin – a wide ranging show band lording it from novelty schlagers to disco bangers, dixieland to revue rock. However, no one else but Tõnu Aare could lay down as dense and hard-boiled funky groove or as smooth and laid-back summer jam. Soundtracking Priit Pärn’s director debut Is the Earth Round?, he delivers it all – desert exotica, hooting jungle trip, yelping city bustle, but also country ambient akin to Brian Eno’s Deep Blue Day in the homecoming theme.

The son of an influential but gone-too-soon composer Uno Naissoo, TÕNU NAISSOO has made his name for himself internationally as a jazz and fusion pianist, including releases in Japan. But he’s also our Rhodes colossus – a synonym for that special cozy electric piano sound in Estonian music, by and large through his soundtracks for children’s TV plays and animated movies. Also check out his glorious Long Way To Go off the Kaseke album Põletus and the end theme to TV play Vinski of the Town, both from 1983.  

OLAV EHALA is the Burt Bacharach of Estonia – for his amiable manners, enchanting sophistication of his melodies as well as his lasting contribution to film and stage music. Yet Bacharach has no equivalent to breakdance-inducing electro funk of Giraffe! Meanwhile, The Baker and the Chimney Sweep theme is a thrilling blend of Focus-style fusion by the session stalwarts Kaseke and Ivo-Linna’s hit-bound straightforward soft rock vocals. Above all, though, Olav Ehala has been the soundtracker to the existential humour and metamorphic fireworks of our greatest international anima-giant, Priit Pärn – the ragtime harking back to silent movie pianists even became the end signature theme to Pärn’s animations.

BERK VAHER