Tartu Popi ja Roki Instituut

Tartu Popi ja Roki Instituut (Tartu Pop and Rock Institute), or TPRI for short, is an eight-piece rock group based in South-Estonian university town Tartu. The band has been active on and off since 2001.
The band’s music incorporates a variety of genres and influences, from the late 1960s vocal driven pop-psychedelia of the Beach Boys and the more obscure Free Design to the “easy-listening” and “lounge music” from roughly the same period. The band's use of vintage analogue keyboards and layered female vocals has drawn comparisons with “retrofuturistic” indie band Broadcast and Stereolab.
The more recent material, recorded for the band's second CD Biidermeier-psühhedeelia which was released in spring 2012, displays a move towards more elaborate vocal harmonies and exotic and less used instruments such as ukulele, mandolin and sitar. Lyrics, sung in Estonian, evoke a cartoon-like world – at the same time menacing and funny – that seems to have grown out of nostalgia for the sights and sounds of childhood.

The band has just signed the contract with USA indi label Minty Fresh for releasing both albums.

British music critic Kieron Tyler, contributor to MOJO and Guardian, writes on the website The Arts Desk : „Tartu Popi ja Roki Instituut with the fabulous and Estonian-sung Biidermeier-Psühhedeelia, an aural sigh of an album which holds its head high in a world populated by Stereolab and Belle & Sebastian.“ David MacFadyen from Los Angeles writes on the website Far From Moscow: “It's witty, wise, and knee-deep in melody.”

Band members: Kristiina Reidolf (keyboards, metallophone), Pille Vilgota (vocals), Siim Randveer (guitars, sitar, ukulele, mandolin, vocals), Peeter Piik (bass), Lauri Kulpsoo (drums, percussion), Kaspar Aus (keyboards), Tanel Aavakivi (trumpet). Music by Kristiina Reidolf and Siim Randveer, lyrics by Silver Sikk.