Latvia Entry: Aarzemnieki - Cake To Bake

June 22, 2016 Critic Jonni 0 Comments

This was the folk song that was loved by the United Kingdom in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014, and quickly hit it big all over twitter at the time, unfortunately it only managed 33 points in the first semi-final of the contest, placing them 13th, and therefore failed to advance to the Grand Final. Aarzemnieki has a good singsong around a camp fire as they explain how they've never baked a cake before.

The name of the band comes from the Latvian word 'ārzemnieki' which means 'foreigners'. The band consists of Jöran Steinhauer, Guntis Veilands, Katrīna Dimanta and Raitis Viļumovs. They are an on-going project but have yet to release any more songs on iTunes or globally. Folk music is hard to promote and make current, when this first dropped it looked like Aarzemnieki might be the band to bring it back, but failing to make the Grand Final definitely deterred them, and perhaps stopped the band from continuing. This song was written by Guntis Veilands.

This music video is a simple performance piece, however this comedic song is failed to be represented as a visual in this video. Where is this cake they've got to bake?

Clearly they're too busy singing around a camp fire to bake the cake that is so urgent. With no kitchen in sight, and none of the events, that they have apparently done in the verses, around; there's not a lot to expect from this video.

Proving they can perform and give out energetic vibes the little group turns into a big camping party, it slightly reminds me of Rascal Flatts' music video for "Banjo".

There's nothing more to comment on from this music video. I don't think they give a great performance, especially considering other artists. Jöran Steinhauer totally stands out alone in this music video. Confidence is definitely attractive, and he proves it in this. I'm guessing this is the last we'll see of Aarzemnieki, but if Jöran Steinhauer pushes he might just make it on his own, but it won't have the same feel as this band. This works as a group, it just needs to be a bit more current with a lot more support as well as promotion.

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