(This article was originally published by Hello Estonians in Australia)
New South Wales based Olev Muska, hailed as the father of Estonian ethnotronica, recently completed an extensive Baltic tour with over 20 events. A tour of this scale is exceptional for Estonia and unprecedented among visiting diaspora artists.
The endeavour was organised by the record label Glitch Please, whose executive Karl Korts sprang into action after hearing Muska’s music at the beginning of the year. By springtime, Muska’s new album had gone to press and his concert calendar for the summer was packed.
Olev Muska has been actively creating since the 1970s. In addition to experimental music, his many endeavours also include public art projects, design and film. Muska’s audience has been growing steadily, with multiple international releases and critical acclaim under his belt. In Estonia, he is regarded as a cultural icon.
He rubbed shoulders with local musical icons… there were also events specifically catering to audiophiles where Muska’s discography was played, as well as speaking engagements and workshops.
“Muska is like a magic word in Estonian music circles — it opens doors,” confessed Karl Korts after counting many happy accidents on the road to the most ambitious tour he has organised thus far.
Olev Muska put on a number of solo shows, for example at the legendary HALL club and Cabaret Volta in Tallinn and Armastuse Saal in Tartu. He also took the stage at several festivals — for example, Kõu, Dark Side of the Moon, and I Land Sound — and rubbed shoulders with local musical icons like Vaiko Eplik, Kiwanoid, and Ratkiller, to name a few. There were also events specifically catering to audiophiles where Muska’s discography was played, as well as speaking engagements and workshops.
“With my partner, Angela Pasqua, we encountered many wonderful people — relatives, old friends, colleagues, professionals, and newly formed friendships — often warm, generous, enthused and highly respectful. And highly intelligent. Angela videoed and photographed as I performed. As a 71-year-old, it was inspiring to see lots of young people listening to and jumping to my particular brand of electro-folk,” reminisces Muska.
The media was highly engaged with covering Muska’s activities, and his fresh LP New Estonian Waltzes was quickly sold out, giving music circles cause to call the summer of 2025 “Muska’s summer”. There were also tour T-shirts, a dedicated beer from a local brewery, and a new book about Muska’s old band Kiri-uu — a favourite of Rolling Stone magazine — the group with which Muska had toured Estonia over 35 years ago. It was then that he had finally met Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, whose work had influenced his own. Muska remembers that experience fondly. This summer, he had the privilege of symbolically returning to Tormis once more for the late composer’s 95th birthday celebration at his childhood home in Kõrveaia to present the new book about Kiri-uu, where Veljo Tormis himself is also a character.
The intense tour also gave Muska opportunities to perform in his own ancestral spaces: his mother’s home village, Kabli, on the western coast, as well as the island of Kihnu — home of Muska’s great-grandmother Marie Uuetoa, sister to legendary Kihnu Jõnn. By the end of “Muska’s summer”, both Olev and Angela were invited guests at the Estonian President’s annual Rose Garden celebration in honour of Estonia’s re-establishment as an independent country.
Muska describes his 50-day trip to Estonia as an amazing adventure: “Through all the interviews and conversations, I must’ve talked myself empty, and it is somewhat discombobulating that after speaking so much Estonian, now back in Australia, it’s all back to English or pure silence. I do notice, though, that far more of the random conversations happening inside my head are in Estonian. Weird!”
Read more about Olev Muska on his site olevmuska.com.au
