Icelandic synth-pop, Estonian shoegaze, frantic Spanish duo, improvised whispers, and other highlights from 18th edition of Tallinn Music Week.
“At 18 in Estonia, you can drink and drive, but not at the same time,” said Toomas Hendrik Ilves, former president of Estonia, at the opening of this year’s Tallinn Music Week in the magnificent building of the Kumu Art Museum. Soon afterwards, he started his DJ set, presenting some of his favourite rock songs.
This one situation shows you why Estonia, a country of 1.37 million people, has managed to create and sustain one of Europe’s most impressive showcase festivals. This year’s edition featured over 200 artists from 37 countries, and attracted 22,000 visits.
Entering adulthood with its 18th edition, Tallinn Music Week certainly feels like a well-oiled machine, but it retains the curiosity, excitement, and daring of its early years. Here’s what got us most thrilled this time.
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lúpína (Iceland)
Standing among us rather than in front of us (see the first picture), lúpína kept everyone’s eyes and ears fully focused on every word, note, and gesture she made.
She layered her vocals and built up the atmosphere with thick synths, yet the music never felt overcomplicated or emotionally exaggerated, it just seemed right. And when she switched from English to Icelandic, that legendary Icelandic magic fully materialized in the venue – only to be wiped away seconds later by heavy beats.
We’ve been following lúpína ever since she appeared in our Best of 2023, but it was the first time I had a chance to see her on stage – and she’s one of those artists whose recordings, as great as they are, should be treated only as a teaser of what you experience live.
• Comment from lúpína:
“I really enjoyed my show at Tallinn Music Week. The crowd was really present, I could see they were listening and really got carried into my world throughout the concert. They danced, cried and laughed.”
“I love to see that my music can find it’s place in the furthest places, and leads to me traveling to places I maybe wouldn’t be able to do if it wasn’t for it. Tallinn is also such a beautiful city and all the people I met were so lovely.”
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KriHeAn (Estonia/Finland)
KriHeAn is an improvisation trio of Kristjan Kannukene on vocals and viola, Heliä Mailiis Viirakivi on voice and flute, and Annel-Liis Poll on voice, and together they gloriously decide to ignore what sounds their instruments – and their mouths – are supposed to produce.
They hiss, whisper, splutter, wheeze, whine, banter, howl, roar, and sometimes also sing, while the instruments try to keep up. KriHeAn’s captivating performance moved constantly between fun and scary, mysterious and all-out. If you’re intrigued, have a taste here – and then see them live if you have a chance.
• Comment from Kristjan Kannukene:
“The show at TMW began with very high energy, followed by a good flow of musical pathways. It was a great joy to sing and play with Heliä Mailiis Viirakivi and our mentor Anne-Liis Poll, who has been guiding our voices and presence throughout the years. The connection between us three (KriHeAn) was truly fulfilling. It was also great to see how the Green Hall got filled the with audience during the performance.”
• Comment from Heliä Mailiis Viirakivi:
“The production team of TMW was wonderful and everything went so smoothly! The performance venue Roheline Saal was the perfect choice for our vocal oriented music, and technicalities run very well throughout our show. The musical essence of our trio KriHeAn is based on improvisation, and the flow of our performance is closely linked to the audience, giving us the boost we need to imagine our creative music. We had a fantastic responsive audience and felt so grateful and hyped to share our wild vocalities as a part of the Üle Heli x Skanu Mežs showcase.”
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Los Sara Fontan (Spain)
While Sara Fontan and Edi Pou improvise their shows entirely – and those improvisations get heated quickly – they always seem to have everything planned and under control. They apparently don’t, because they declare that they “embrace error as a creative opportunity,” but you would never guess it from watching.
Los Sara Fontan’s show was a frenzied dialogue between percussion and violin, synths, loops, and effects, escaping genres or rather moving between them effortlessly. Their physicality plays a role too, adding to the cathartic feel they leave you with.
• Comment from Los Sara Fontan:
“What a curious, attentive, diverse and open audience we had! It was a pleasure to share stage with different styles, each one with its own personality, from hardcore punk to energetic pop: Vikendica showcases are always a pleasant surprise!”
“The sonic experience was a blast, thank to the Tallinn Music Week crew and equipment. We were able to chat with old friends, make new ones from around the continent and beyond, so the whole experience is gonna last long in our memories.”
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vgtbl.pl (Poland)
I had a chance to work with vgtbl.pl (formerly known as Franek Warzywa & Młody Budda) as a mentor last year before their performance at the first edition of Music Week Poland, hence I know they’re down-to-earth, hard-working guys. But on stage, they’re all rage, and all fun.
The hyperpop/punk duo kept the F-hoone Black Hall full and furious from the first to the last shout. Nobody cared if they (often) switched from English to Polish, everyone understood it was all about enjoying ourselves, and vegetables. They hypnotized the crowd to the point that they managed to inspire a so-called train dance – a speciality of Polish weddings.
If you check out vgtbl.pl’s studio recordings and like them, do know that their live shows have a tenfold effect. If you don’t, go and see them anyway, you might find yourself joining the train dance in the end.
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mariin k. (Estonia)
Mariin Kallikorm, performing as mariin k., started as a dream pop artist with that inconspicuous bedroom feel. A few years later, she comes out on stage with her band and they deliver a fully fledged shoegaze symphony, and immediately you understand why mariin k. have been touring so much recently – see her comment below.
Reverbs and tremolos are what stands out first in their music, but at its center you’ll also find excellent songwriting and Mariin’s eerie vocals. The mix of all of that is what made everyone at the show so excited.
• Comment from mariin k.:
“Our show at Tallinn Music Week this year was a very special one – it felt like the completion of a cycle. We also played at Paavli last year, but back then we were still quite new and a bit shy on stage. Since then, we’ve performed in seven countries, toured the UK with Night Tapes, and played festivals in the Netherlands, France, and Germany, among others. It felt absolutely amazing to be back at TMW with that experience behind us.”
“It was also a great moment to share some of the new material we’ve been working on. We’re really grateful to be making music, and both the gig and the crowd had such a warm, positive energy for us.”
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Other highlights of TMW 2026:
• Katarsis (Lithuania). Heavy, compelling rock set by the most unexpected participants in last year’s Eurovision contest.
• maarja nuut (Estonia). Former folk star, now ambient adept, she absorbed everyone with soundscapes blending electronics with violin and nature.
• Merry (Denmark). Emotional, sometimes dramatic rock performance backed by great songwriting and blunt lyrics.
• Duo Ruut (Estonia). Estonian pick from our Best Albums of 2025, the zither duo fully presents themselves only on stage.
• Hajda Banda (Poland/Belarus). True village dance party with bustling traditional instruments (e.g. three-row accordion, hammered dulcimer) and multiple voices.
• Alonette (Estonia). If there’s a singer-songwriter who sounds like spring it’s Alonette, especially in a fully acoustic setting we saw in Tallinn.
• JATHB (Tunisia). This duo took us to a Sufi ceremony with their modular synths, mesmerizing African rhythms and chants.
• Erki Pärnoja (Estonia). Cinematic instrumental rock session deliver by a pillar of Estonian alternative music.
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RECORD LABEL: Estonian Funk Embassy
Celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, Estonian Funk Embassy is a music label focused on funk, soul, disco, and jazz. They have their own recording studio just below their office in Telliskivi Creative City (which I was lucky to visit), they curate a stage at Tallinn Music Week, and they have also organized their own festival.
What I found most interesting about the Funk Embassy though is that besides releasing contemporary artists, they also explore Estonian music archives from the 1970s and 1980s, bringing to light music that was often forgotten, censored or even forbidden in the dark communist era.
One such example is Marju Marynel Kuut, once among the most prominent jazz singers of the Soviet Union, later forced to emigrate because of her fascination with American funk and soul, which was “ideologically incorrect”. She left Estonia in 1980 first for Sweden, and later moved to the US, in fact starting her career from the scratch.
A few years ago, Funk Embassy asked her to compile an album with her favourite songs that she had recorded while still living in Estonia. Before passing away in 2022, she managed to select 22 tracks for the LP, which is called “Üksi, kuid vabana” – and is also available on Bandcamp. There’s even a song in Japanese!
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PLACE: Arvo Pärt Centre
Arvo Pärt, 90 year old, is reportedly world’s most-played living composer, beloved for his meditative, mystical works based on a method he calls tintinnabuli, which he invented back in the 1970s after long years of artistic crisis.
To celebrate his legacy – and to protect his enormous archives – Estonia decided to build Arvo Pärt Centre. In 2013, the president Toomas Hendrik Ilves (the same one who DJ-ed at TMW’s opening) announced an architectural competition, and the design selected from 71 projects was by a a Spanish firm Nieto Sobejano Arquitectos.
Spectacular in its quiet way, the vision was inspired both by Pärt’s music and the forest where the composer lives, and where the centre was supposed to be built. It was opened in 2018, and we had a chance to visit it as part of a joint programme by TMW, Music Estonia & Visit Estonia for international professionals and journalists (thanks!).
It his hard to imagine a better place to explore Pärt’s music and his life, to take a look at his library and hand-written scores. To visit his little chapel and to listen to his music in a cozy concert hall with a huge window looking at the trees that surround the centre. And to take a walk to the beach, with a chance of meeting Arvo Pärt having a walk in his forest.
► Couldn’t make it to Tallinn? Check out Tallinn Music Week’s official playlist on Spotify. You might also enjoy our global playlist.
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Photo credits: Maria Kooskora, Alecc Paalmäe, Maria Tyutina, Elena Mkrtchian, Danja de Jonckheere, Rene Jakobson/Visit Estonia, Roland Halbe.
