Bagpipes in Latvia?: Auli and "Zenzeme"

This will be another short and sweet post, since I was out of town most of the day. Bagpipes! They seem to be all over the world. Some would consider that a great thing, and others not so much. I am in the camp that likes bagpipes, and have been very amazed at the breadth of countries that have them as part of their musical traditions.

One country that doesn't have much of a bagpipe tradition is Latvia, so leave it to a Latvian group to create one. Auli was formed in 2003 as a drum and bagpiping group. Some of its members came from the first drum and bagpiping group in Latvia, Dudinieki, which preceded them by 10 years. Latvia is not known for a tradition of drum and bagpiping, but Auli draws on folklore indicating that those instruments were frequently present in historical Latvia. Auli develops the sound of what they think Latvian bagpiping might have been, and combines it with drums including one of the biggest tree trunk drums in the Baltics. Auli started out playing dance and bagpipe melodies and incorporating tunes and drum pieces of other European peoples, but they have since branched out, developing their own melodies and style to set them apart from other mediaeval piping groups in Europe. You have to admire their creativity! Zemzeme is from their 2010 release Etnotranss.