Let's Kiss Kiss Kiss: The Midnight Sun Letkiss Jenka Band conducted by Harry Arnold - Polydor 1965

'Don't judge a book by its cover' they say, but I can't say I've ever really agreed with 'them' on this one; true enough, you might not be able to judge the quality of a book by its cover, but as the cover tends to be a book's main selling device it usually gives a useful indication of what's inside its pages. Usually, but not always. And through such roundabout musings we arrive nicely at my latest vinyl acquisition from Harry Arnold and his Midnight Sun Letkiss Jenka Band.

This caught my eye on its browse through the crates because I briefly thought I'd stumbled upon an obscure copy of  MGM's 'coke bottle' Velvet Underground compilation. After I'd twigged it wasn't, the cover then put me in mind of a soundtrack to an obscure European art film, which is also something that would be right up my street. On turning it over though I find that the back cover features a photograph of two young couples, naked apart from some towels, doing what looks like the conga in a sauna whilst the accompanying text talks of a dance craze from Finland's 'lonely backwoods' that is taking Europe by storm. As I've never heard of Jenka or Harry Arnold, and with no year of release stated anywhere on the whole album, I can honestly say I had no idea what I had in my hands or what it might sound like; this was one book whose cover was keeping schtum. 

 

A quick look on Wikipedia reveals Jenka to be:

"Jenkka ['jeŋkːɑ] is a fast Finnish partner dance originated in Finnish folk dance the Finnish version of Schottische. It is danced to the music in 2/4 or 4/4 time signature of about 140 beats per minute."

  

Well fair enough I guess, but as there's no instructions anywhere on this album on how to 'do' this dance, I'm guessing it's aimed at the diehard hardcore Jenkka-ists out there who don't need to be spoon-fed this stuff. As I don't fall within that category, I have to rely on Wikipedia to come to the rescue again:

  
"Men and women do similar steps. The initial dance position is the man is to the left of the woman both facing in the direction of the line of dance, with their inner arms on each other's waists. The dancers go forward in a run similar to Polka: "left-right-left-hop(on the left foot)", "right-left-right-hop". After than they join the free arms, assume the face-to-face closed dance position and proceed with the chain of pivot turns stepping "left-right-left-right" or "left-hop-right-hop". The runs of similar steps are normally started at the beginnings of musical phrases" 

All of which is slightly suggestive of some kind of group based pastime along the lines of line dancing. Perhaps. I had no idea - all that was left to me was to listen to the thing and, as far as that goes, the album is made up of a series of jaunty, horn led instrumental ensemble pieces, any one of which could have soundtracked a 1960s - early 70's saucy British comedy film, one probably starring Peter Sellers or Leslie Phillips (as an aside, I checked online and this came out in 1965 so that sounds about right).There's very little variation on this theme, next to none if truth be told and to these ears the track titles are as completely interchangeable as the music - 'Jenka In Sauna' sounds like exactly the same exercise as 'At The Jenka Show'. You can take Jenka anywhere it seems. 

Ultimately, by the end of side two I'm left with a certain feeling of frustration about it all; my usual process is to line these records up in my sights as sitting targets to take pot shots at, but I've got no direction home with this one. I do not know if this is good Jenka, bad Jenka, overly commercial Jenka or proper roots Jenka. I don't know if Harry Arnold and his Midnight Sun Letkiss Jenka band are the Captain Beefheart of Jenka or the Bon Jovi, the Kenny G or the Miles Davis. The album takes pains to point out that there's a polar bear and Viking logo on the cover that, like the Chess logo on a Chicago blues album, should be taken as proof of some kind of authenticity, but in truth I've no idea what they are talking about. None whatsoever. I've listened with an open mind, but I now know this wasn't meant to be a standalone artefact and that there's a whole dimension here I'm not privy to. I've come at it with my gloves pre-loaded with my usual sarcasm and distain, but I've found I can't lay a good, clean punch on it; I'm like the school bully who picks on the weedy looking kid who fights back. In short, it feels like Harry Arnold has pwned me.

And this makes it difficult to come to any conclusion about all of this Jenka malarkey. Again, all that's left is the music, and whilst I don't hate it, I simply don't trust it; the snob in me looks at it sideways, fearful that my Finnish counterpart would take the piss out of me for liking something the snob in him would see as so much cheesy crap. But then if I'm being honest, if this same disc had been packaged as the soundtrack to an Eastern European art film then it would sit easily in my collection along with the rest of them, even though once played I'd probably never listen to it again.  Let's call it a draw.