Laine Live: Vaiko Eplik & Eliit

December means gingerbread, mulled wine and Christmas lights for many people. For those who love sarcasm, dazzling wordplay and the best of Estonian pop, it means something more: the annual concert by Vaiko Eplik and his ensemble Eliit at Uus Laine.

Vaiko Eplik is an Estonian musical alchemist: singer, producer, visionary and perfectionist. He cannot and should not be neatly filed away. He is a composer who can write a song that haunts you long after the day is over and the playlist has changed.

His latest album, “Lähen müüjaks” (“I’m Going to Be a Salesman”), ties poetry and music into a knot that you cannot simply untie. Eplik performs Betti Alver’s texts so that they sound as urgent as the evening news: death, poverty and existential weariness are back at the top of pop music. In some songs he sings angrily and crushed, as in Modest Mouse’s early years; in others he tricks you with a cheerful major melody that would suit a picnic, until you realise you are actually dancing to a funeral procession.

And Eliit? Vaiko is back with the full ensemble.

On 5 December we are not just celebrating a concert. We celebrate the meeting of word and sound, the union of absurd and beauty, the dance of life and death.

Doors: 19:00.

Tickets on Fienta.

Venue: Vana-Kalamaja 1, Tallinn.

The evening is supported by Muusikalinn Tallinn.