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...

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!

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.

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.

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).

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.

What is Finnish independent music, exactly?

It's been a while since I last wrote anything here – I've just had too many other things to do, plus I don't think anyone other than Jeff has missed me.

Something occurred to me a couple of months ago while listening to the Finnish pop group Ultra Bra, a sickly sweet band from the late 90s that made technically competent music with melodies that never fail to irritate ("Hei kuule Suomi" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPLGaerS12U) and "Tyttöjen välisestä ystävyydestä" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2FV1W0hlIg) are probably two of the band's least irritating songs).

This band were one of the biggest bands in Finland in the 90s, but, at least according to the little bit of research I could be bothered conducting into the subject, were on an independent record label (i.e. not one of the world's big four labels or their subsidiaries), which was bought over by Universal in 2010.

I'm not sure how this affects my understanding of Finnish independent music. Maybe a lot more Finnish music than I previously thought is independent, making me think that it's Finland's underground music rather than its independent music that I want to write about in this blog. Yet using the word "underground", often understood as a musical style rather than a holistic approach to making and distributing music, arguably de-emphasises the the non-corporate nature of the music I'm interested in. Perhaps I should rename this blog "Finnish Underground Independent Music Digest", then, but as a result the website address would be out of sync with the name. What's a boy to do?

David Sandström

I've decided for no good, justifiable reason to include a second post today about some non-Finnish music.

David Sandström, as some of you will know, was the drummer in the Swedish band Refused. Since their demise, he's made a lot of pop rock I don't like very much. However, the first thing (to the best of my knowledge) he released under his own name after Refused was wrapped up was Om det inte händer nåt innan imorgon så kommer jag. The album is no longer available to buy, so Sandström's uploaded it here:

www.demonbox.com/david/main.htm# (click on "Musik")

The album's very experimental and a little bewildering at times, but I urge you, absolutely urge you, to listen to "1968", which is so good I woke up a few days ago with it in my head despite not having listened to it in many, many months.

Fun

I got my hands on Dischord's 20th anniversary compilation around the time I posted my last blog entry and have been working my way through that recently so haven't had much time to listen to Finnish stuff. But here's something now.

As much as bands shouldn't be accorded praise and respect based on who their friends are, the fact that today's blog subject has had their last two albums recorded by Steve Albini has that sort of effect. A former bandmate of mine once described Shellac's music as "brutal" and "relentless". Fun are a bit like this, but there's some light relief in there as well. The band's record label says this about them:

"Think of Rapeman and Melt Banana, fry up some Butthole Surfers and then add a dash of the spastic Finnish jazzcore of Deep Turtle." (www.ifsociety.com/bands.php)

That doesn't mean too much to me, but maybe it does to someone else (other than its author). I've only listened to one of Fun's records – Zu-Pa, plus the stuff on their website – but on it I hear lots of Shellac with at least the occasional dash of Mr. Bungle. They also have an attitude that reminds me of Groop Dogdrill, if that means anything to you.

" 'Fun'. The name says it all. It's a reminder of what rock music should be." (www.fullsteamrecords.com/app/artist/list/-/category)

Considering that "Angora" describes the stabbing of a woman, I'm not sure if I have quite the same sense of humour, but I can see what's being gotten at – Fun sound like they're capable of having a laugh....sometimes.

Zu-Pa's most accessible track is "Slonko" (www.noisecorewalze.com/#/media), which absolutely oozes coolness. Also worth a listen – in addition to the tunes on the band's website – is "I've Got a Truck" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGN6ADSI4Dc), if only to hear how a song's first two minutes can be based almost solely on one repeating bass note. The first time you listen to the song, this beginning is very boring, but after that first listening, armed with the knowledge that there's something coming in two minutes' time, the buildup and release is exhilarating.

My new favourite band? – Echo Is Your Love

Not to put too fine a point on it, Echo Is Your Love are absolutely fantastic. They've recorded five albums (all of which I've listened to) and a bunch of singles and split records (none of which I've listened to because they're only available on vinyl and I don't own a record player). I first came across them while watching a 5-minute documentary about their record label (which is run by two members of the band):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdfeltLnCSk&feature=feedlik

The song "Step in step inside" (available at www.ifsociety.com/echo/human.html and www.myspace.com/echoisyourlove) was used in the background and I liked what I heard so got hold of their stuff.

"Step in step inside" is on Humansize, the band's second most recent album from 2006. At the risk of giving you the impression I'm a little fanatical, this album is, to my ears, almost perfect. In fact, there are only two things in the whole albums I would change, and these are so minute and insignificant that if you blink (for five seconds) you miss 'em. Although I'd recommend having a listen to "Step in step inside" to sample Echo Is Your Love's greatness, the rest of the album doesn't sound much like this. There are a heap of different styles in there and each is pulled off with style. The other song off the album on the band's website and Myspace site is "Peace song", which is also really, really good. I can't recommend this album enough!!!

Next I listened to Heart Fake, their album from last year. In my opinion, it's not quite as good as Humansize, but it's still most commendable.The two songs off the album on the aforementioned sites aren't the ones I would personally use to promote the album, but that doesn't mean they're bad songs – far from it! The best songs for me on this album are the understated "Someone Took Advantage Of Her" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEm5Izau7JU), "Song Against Hate And Rockets" and "Silver Sufferer" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCi15WCnVF4).

Paper Cut Eye is the band's third album. On their Finnish-language Wikipedia webpage, it says that "[t]he band are often compared to Sonic Youth and Blonde Redhead." When I read this for the first time, I didn't see the connection between Sonic Youth and the Humansize or Heart Fake. Paper Cut Eye is where the Sonic Youthiness begins to show, and it only gets more visible from here on in. "Pleasures Unknown" (on Myspace) and "Children in Lines" (on the band's website) are two of the best songs on a very decent album. Why I like Humansize and Heart Fake more than Paper Cut Eye and the two earlier albums I haven't mentioned yet is because of the noise:melody ratio – I like melodic songs with a bit of noise (i.e. Echo Is Your Love's most recent albums) as opposed to noisy songs with a bit of melody (i.e. the band's earlier stuff).

Then it was 8 Hours, the band's first album. I really disliked this the first time I heard it, but it's grown on me since then. "a song for Sea Scouts" (on the band's website) is one of my favourite songs on the record, while "Wake Up" (on Myspace) will give you fair idea of the album's overall style.

Last up is Sheets of Blank Fucking Paper. Very noisy, with a lot of Sonic Youth and Joy Division in there. Not really my thing, but judge for yourself – "Black and Red Lies on Yellow" (www.youtube.com/watch?v=ER32A4zq6Ps).

Endstand & Confusa

Endstand

As part of writing the article I speak about at the top of the page, I interviewed Janne Tamminen, the man behind the leading independent label Combat Rock Industry (www.fireinsidemusic.com), so It'd make sense to start with a couple of bands off this label.

The first, in fact, features Tamminen himself – arguably Finland's most celebrated hardcore punk band, the now defunct Endstand.

Hardcore is a musical genre I sometimes "get" and at other times don't. For example, I can enjoy listening to the Bad Brains, Black Flag, Gorilla Biscuits and (in 20-minute spurts) Minor Threat. However, a band such as Youth of Today I just find incomprehensible.

So whether me thinking the three Endstand albums I've listened to (Spark, The Time is Now and Never Fall Into Silence) are all pretty decent tells you something about Endstand's brand of hardcore, I don't know. Spark is, in my opinion, the most sophisticated, well-rounded of the three, something the Combat Rock Shop seems to agree with:

"After 11 years together, Endstand offer up their best album."(www.fireinsidemusic.com/shop/item/endstand-spark--cd)

The band's myspace page (www.myspace.com/endstand) has three of the songs off that album on it. Unfortunately, one of these isn't my favourite track off the album ("Eyes Shut"). The other tracks should give you the basic idea, though.

The Time Is Now is a big darker than Spark but is probably as good an introduction to Endstand's music. I couldn't find my favourite track off the album, "Lost Balance", on Myspace, YouTube, the band's website etc., but here's another track instead ("Right From The Start" – which isn't one of the "darker" songs"):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgQkib20CIM

Never Fall Into Silence is a far lighter affair – it's slower and less aggressive. Although I like the two aforementioned albums more, NFIS isn't too shabby itself. Type in "Never Fall Into Silence" into YouTube and there's plenty to sample. One of my favourite tracks is one of the album's heaviest but also its slowest ("Someone Is Watching You..."):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-meTv0vS5WA

Confusa

Confusa are a punk band comprising four women and one man, although this last fact isn't really worth mentioning (n.b. are The Pixies or Sonic Youth ever described as bands comprisng three men and one women?!).

Their songs, in terms of melodies and harmonies, are quite simple but contain interesting, well-executed time changes from a hyperspeed meter to a Sex Pistols-esque one. Quite rare for a loud Finnish band, the band's two singers sing/scream/bark in Finnish.

The band only seem to have one album out. Luckily for you, the album's opening track ("Viisaammat"), one of the best on the album, is up on their Myspace site (www.myspace.com/confusaband) and their own website (www.confusa.net/index.php?section=discography).

Most of the song is sung are breakneck speed, so much so that I have difficulty hearing what's being said even with the lyric sheet in front of me. The repeated chorus lyric "Meitä viisaammat kirjoissaan" is more discernible, however. What does it mean, I hear you ask? Poetic considerations aside, I'd translate it as, "Those who are wiser than us in their books". I'll save you a lecture this time around on how Finnish grammar makes conveying the same message possible in only three words.