Welcome to my blog, in which I'll be trying to give some useful listening tips to those of you who want to hear what the Finnish independent music scene has to offer.

Why I've decided to set up this blog

Although I was active in Aberdeen (a city in Scotland)'s music scene before moving to Finland, primarily with the bands Dedalus and Hookers Green No. 1, I lost interest in music around 2006. For instance, I bought about four albums between summer 2006 and the end of 2010.

At the same time, I was only ever an avid music fan from around 1997 to 2000 – the years when I religiously bought Kerrang! (or read it in the newsagent's I worked at). Therefore, I have a pretty decent knowledge of loud music from the late 1990s as well as of rock history before that, but everything else is a bit of mystery to me.

In the summer of 2010, I got back some of the passion I used to have for music while reading Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991. During the following autumn this rekindling of interest in music was strengthened as I researched and wrote an article about straight edge in Finland:

http://sixdegrees.wm.fi/6d/index.php/society/39-society/320-out-of-step-with-the-world

Becoming acquainted with some of the individuals and bands involved in Helsinki's hardcore scene, as well as attending my first gigs in four years, inspired me to delve further into the Finnish independent music scene. What I found I liked, and I'd like others to benefit from the raking I'll be doing in the coming weeks, months and maybe even years.

Do I see myself as a music critic, then?

No! No! No!

The most negative thing I'll say about a band I encounter is that I'm not too keen on certain small details of their music; nearly everything else will be positive, and as such I don't think I can be called a (good) critic. If I don't like a band, I won't write anything about them. Local bands have a hard enough time trying to build up a following without middlemen putting potential fans off before the latter have even heard the music for themselves.

Of course, my blog could, if anybody ever ends up reading it, be accused of doing something similar, as my highlighting of the bands I like may sway readers in one direction and not another. However, I see my blog in "positive sum" rather than "zero sum" terms. In other words, if somebody comes across my blog, it's unlikely they'll be a Finn, as there are better sources of information about this topic written by Finns themselves. Instead, readers probably won't know much about Finnish independent music to begin with and anything I write will, at best, help them to find out more about a somewhat unknown and impenetrable music scene they wouldn't have found out too much about otherwise. Maybe I'll be proved wrong. Let's see what happens!

What is Finnish independent music?

I'm not too sure yet, as I've only listened to a handful of records thus far. I'm basically interested in bands that aren't signed to big labels and who play some sort of guitar music. Maybe, as I listen to more records, I'll have to widen my definition of "Finnish independent music", but it'll do for now. One thing I should say is that I won't be writing anything about really, really heavy bands, as I simply can't tell the difference between a poor super-heavy band and a great one. I'm not saying that this music isn't good; it's just not my thing.

Leading on from this point, I should also say that, as noted above, I'm no music expert, so something I find impressive and exciting in Finland's independent music scene may, in fact, be a complete rip-off of some band I've never heard of. At worst, though, I'll be recommending competent, generic bands.

Okay, I think that's all for now. Hope you benefit from what I have to say!

Al, Monday 17 January 2011

Monday 28 November 2011

No time to post anything right now

Just in case anybody's wondering why I haven't posted anything here for over three months, my wife gave birth to our second child at the end of August, and finding time to do the necessary listening, locating links and writing isn't proving to be so easy.

Prior to my daughter's birth, I was planning posts about the bands Sur-rur, Cigarette Crossfire, Life Giving Waters and Sad Days Indeed, but I still haven't gotten round to writing them. Hopefully I will do some time soon...

Friday 12 August 2011

Baxter Stockman

A couple of weeks ago I was becoming a little exasperated by the constant stream of hardcore bands I kept coming across. The more I search for new bands, the more I'm starting to think that Finland is absolutely hardcore mad!

While in the pits of despair – not really! – I came across Baxter Stockman. Having a Myspace page with the URL www.myspace.com/baxterfucksyou wasn't a promising beginning, but it just goes to show how misleading first impressions can be.

Baxter Stockman may not be exactly what I'm after on this Finnish music voyage I've embarked upon, but they come pretty close. They're very tight and seem to draw on similar influences to Fun (mentioned earlier on the blog).

The band have only released two EPs, and one's long been out of print, according to the band's drummer. So there's only their second EP, six songs long, and a couple of tunes on their Myspace page from that first EP for you to peruse.

The Myspace page is definitely the place to start, as three of the tracks off EP 2 are there – "Cart" is particularly good, in my opinion. If you like what you hear, maybe this video will be of interest to you as well. The first song they play ("Madonna With Two Heads") is another of my favourites.

EP 2 is available from the band's record label's website. Despite the list price being €7, I got mine for €5 (including postage). A very good investment, indeed!

Monday 1 August 2011

Tv-resistori

For a change, here's an entry about a Finnish (indie-) pop band.

I'm not sure where I came across Tv-resistori (Finnish for, unsurprisingly, "TV resistor") – maybe while listening to a band recommended to me by a colleague on YouTube. Maybe.

Although a far cry from "my" music, Tv-resistori write nice, catchy songs. That's not to say I love everything off the three albums of theirs I've listened to, but there's a lot of good stuff in there.

The first Tv-resistori song I heard was "J.o.v.h.m.l.s.o.a.m.o. (love)". I liked it so decided to have a listen to the album that song's from – Serkut rakastaa paremmin ("Cousins Love Better", whatever that means).

Initially, I was completely turned off the whole album by its titular, opening track. However, the more I listened to the song, the more it grew on me, until I caught myself humming the chorus one day. Yet before this occurred, I'd already decided that other songs on the album, such as "Numerot on meidän puolella" ("The Numbers Are On Our Side"), "Ratsasta mun ponilla" ("Ride On My Pony") and "Kerro poika" ("Tell [Me] Boy"), were pretty listenable. "Serkut rakastaa paremmin" and "Numerot on meidän puolella" can be heard on the band's website.

Serkut rakastaa paremmin was released in 2006 and seems to have marked a departure for the band away from, what the webstore Diogenes describes as, music with "bubblegum keyboards" to something generally more acoustic instrument-based, or at least electronically generated acoustic instrument-based, if you get what I mean. The acoustic instruments were, I should say, there from the beginning, but they started to dominate on this album.

Earlier this year the band released Tv-resistori. They've very generously put four of the album's 11 tracks on their website, of which I'd recommend three in particular : "Funtsi" ("Think"), "Ilta aikaa" ("Evening Time") and "Koputan puuta" ("I Knock On Wood").

Lastly, the band's debut album, which is a bit too quirky for me but at times displays the same melodic strength as on the other two albums when not overpowered by, in my opinion, pretty irritating synthesizers. Again from the band's website, "Intiaanidisko" ("Native American Disco") is nice, as is "Centrumi" ("Centre", I presume, although I'm pretty sure "centrumi" isn't a real word), which is available on Spotify.

Saturday 23 July 2011

Am I being a hypocritical, self-righteous twat?

Just thought I'd share something that occurred to me yesterday while I was doing the dishes and planning a future post about the Finnish indie pop band Tv-resistori.

Is it complete nonsense to maintain a blog about independent music in Finland where I reference bands that have released albums on major labels and add links to corporate websites such as Myspace and YouTube? And lest I forget, who owns www.blogger.com?

Murmansk

Murmansk describe their music as perhaps being "shoegaze with aggressive edge", which is a far better way of putting it than what's said on the band's Finnish-language Wikipedia page – "Murmansk's music has been described as indie rock, alternative rock, krautrock, shoegaze, noise rock, stoner rock, psychedelic rock, post-punk, hardcore punk, goth rock, math rock and progressive rock."

While some of that is bollocks, it has to be said that Murmansk are somewhat eclectic. Maybe not when one considers all the different genres of music they could choose from, but you probably get my point.

On their latest LP, some of that eclecticism (i.e. the dictionary tells me that's a word) has been replaced by more consistency. Whether that's a result of them signing to a subsidiary of Universal Music International (embarrassingly called Spinefarm) is worth some consideration even if it's the completely wrong conclusion to come to.

I've had a listen to the two LPs of Murmansk's I was able to lay my hands on, but since this blog isn't interested in corporate releases, I'll just tell you about the first of these albums. Admittedly, though, you'll come across tracks from the former if you follow the links below, and some of it's definitely commendable.

The independent album in question is Chinese Locks, whose titular track is available on the band's Myspace page (www.myspace.com/murmansktheband) as is the sort of Tool-esque track "Pale", which I'm not so keen on. I can't seem to be able to track down anything else from the album, unfortunately. The songs "Vague Language" and "Shallow End" are worth a listen, especially if you come across better quality recordings of them than what's found here and here.

Thursday 9 June 2011

Manifesto Jukebox

During my absence of two months, or whatever it was, I was listening to a lot of music but just never go round to writing about it here. This was one of the bands I was listening to at the time.

Manifesto Jukebox play uplifting chord progression-based melodic punk. There's something slightly Hüsker Dü-like about them, although they don't necessarily sound like the former: maybe it's the combination of hardcore-derived vocals and melodic guitars that reminds me of those Hüsker Dü songs sang by Bob Mould.

Manifesto Jukebox are no longer on the go, but they released three albums (all of which I've listened to) and a few EPs (none of which I'd listened to properly because they're only available on vinyl. Some tracks off these EPs can be heard on the band's website – www.fireinsidemusic.com/manifestojukebox) before calling it quits.

I like all three of the albums, although my favourite is probably their second (from 2002), Remedy.

The only (album-version) track from the album I could find from the band's website, YouTube and the band's official Myspace page was "When Bubbles Burst" (www.fireinsidemusic.com/mp3/bubbles.mp3). However, if you have Spotify, which I've just gotten this very minute (although I'm not sure if I'm entirely comfortable with whole albums by bands on independent labels being available there free of charge), the following tracks are worth a listen:

"Remedy", "Consent" and "Signs of Life".

As for the band's other albums, again, I couldn't find any album versions of tracks from the band's debut album, Desire, but the tracks "There's Always Someone" and "Our New Lenins" are available (along with the rest of the album) on Spotify.

The band's final album, Strain, sounds, at least to my ears, slightly different from the first two albums. I think it's the way the guitars have been recorded that differentiates the album: I'm not so good at identifying different recording techniques, but the guitars seem treblier and less distorted, which reminds me of the little I've heard of Kurt and JR Ewing (the band, not the '80s soap opera character).

"Rise and Shine" is arguably the best track on the album, something the band seems to agree with, as that's the song from the album they've made available on their website (www.fireinsidemusic.com/mp3/MJ_riseandshine.mp3) and have also allowed to be used on one of their record label's compilations.

Apart from "Rise and Shine" and "If I Had A Soul" (www.fireinsidemusic.com/mp3/mj_ifihadasoul.mp3 – a noisier version of the Strain track from one of the band's split EPs), I couldn't find anything else from the album on the internet, but here's a live video of the songs "Insto"/"What's Left Of Our Answers" that should give you some idea of what two of my favourite tracks from the album sound like (www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZJrVMdxAew from 4.04 mins).

Monday 6 June 2011

Alamaailman Vasarat

Alamaailman Vasarat (Finnish for "Hammers of the Underworld") are one of the most unique bands I think I've ever heard. Although they seem to be most at home playing klezmer music, they aren't afraid of cranking the cello amps all the way up to 11 or pulling off other unconventional tricks.

I've only had the chance to listen to the band's first album, Vasaraasia, and what's available on YouTube, but that's enough of a basis to say that Alamaailman Vasarat are definitely worth a listen or twenty.

"Astiatehdas" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-PlKlsOdZA) is a good song to start with, especially as the video is fantastic.

As for songs off the first album, "Mamelukki & Musta leski" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BHWEqVMQyE), "Lakeus" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSxE1zqOYe4) and "Merikäärme" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=U35OXRA0ckA from 2.16 to 6.00 mins) will give you a good idea of what the band's capable of.

This last link is to a silent movie someone seems to have created their own Alamaailman Vasarat soundtrack for. From what I watched of the film, that could be a really interesting way to acquaint yourself with the band's music.