Some unsung heroes and Finnish music

Hi All!

Welcome to yet another edition of Music All Around! Hope you had a nice weekend. Weather here is sunny now and pretty warm (finally summer is here). So this time we have bit more sunnier artists to feature. I will also let youin Finnish music scene from alternative point of view. Let´s start off with true unsung hero, who is multi-instrumentalist hailing from Wolverhampton. Let me introduce you fantastic Ben Christophers!


Here we have truly talented man who hasn´t gotten the attention here clearly deserves. He has worked with Bat For Lashes and toured with Imogen Heap on her Ellipse tour. I had the pleasure of catching Immi´s show at Helsinki where Ben opened for Imogen. I had never before heard of this man but there was something magical about his music. I decided to buy the slef titled minialbum from the gig and that blew me away big time.


The album opens with They Make Sparks With Their Claws, which became one of my favourite songs of alltime. On the album Ben plays lyra, piano and guitar. Lyra and his voice on They Make Sparks creates magical atmosphere that draws you in and makes you really listen. Rest of this mini lp is also personal singer-songwwriter material. Nobody Knows is beautiful piano song with darker atmosphere. Snow brings lyra back and has slowdragging bassline from time to time. Arty and alternative, but luckily not art for art´s sake. This oozes soul. Circle goes on heaby rhythm tripand is hypnotic track. Because my english is bit rusty (and I always concentrate on song as whole) I won´t comment on lyrics, only the feeling I get from the records ad the songs as whole. The album is pretty relaxed, but still has something dark and sinister atmosphear in some song. If you want something truly special and personal, buy this one or Viewfinder. I´d start with those. Spoonface and My Beautiful Demon are more straight up pop/rock vein and haven´t opened up to me as yet, eventhough I like those albums too. But this is the one for me. More of Ben Christophers and albums availabe here. Some songs:

They Make Sparks With Their Claws from Ben Christophers mini lp

These Are The Days from same album

Leaving My Sorrow Behind from My Beautiful Demon

Live In Holland 2005

I´d also like to take this opportunity to feature also this songstress before heading to Finland.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Amanda Ghost!


Hails from London and is best-known for co-written James Blunt´s (awful) You´re Beautiful, Beyonce´s Beautiful Liar and for Ian Brown´s I Did It For The Glory just to mention few. She´s also sang on Dark Globe´s Break My World, which was minor hit and beautiful song and sang backing vocals on Prodigy track. One of the latest works I´ve heard is duet with Boy George on Time Machine, nice pop song. On this article I´ll concentrate on her album Ghost Stories. Overall good album, but not without few faults. Opening track, Dirty Mind, doesn´t fit rest of the album at all. Dirty Mind is your dance track, perfect for saturday night disco time. Rest of the album leans on acoustic guitar singer-songwriter genre. Rest of the album is bit repetetive, songs reminding eachoter quite a lot, sam trouble I find with Aimee Mann. There are standout tracks like Idol and Cellophane. I´m not saying this is bad record (or Aimee´s records either, they are good), I´d say it´s seminal and could be bit more personal and versatile. Still nice album worth listening to. Songs from the album:

Filthy Mind

Cellophane

Idol

And now time for local talent! Finland is mostly known as heavy meta/rockl country and those two genres do dominate here radiowaves. Luckily there´s more to this country than Sunrise Avenue, Rasmus, Amorphis and Lordi.

There are some singer-songwriters over here and my favourite is definetly Jippu and her debut album Salaisuuksia, Joita Yksinäiset Huutavat Unissaan (translates secrets, that lonely ones scream in their sleeps.).



She has really beautiful lyrics and the way she sings is just heartfelt. She truly sings straight from her heart and you can hear the pain in her voice. Second album took direction towards radio-friendly pop, so that album did nothing for me. If you don´t mind her singing in finnish, try her music. Here´s one of the standout tracks from the album, Kaksi Kauneinta (Two most beautiful)

If you´re into smoky bar-jazz (might be finnish term), you might like Sir Elwoodin Hiljaiset värit band (Sir Elwood´s silent colours) and especially their older albums. Later ones went also into the radio friendly area, which is truly a shame. The band did get wider audience, eventhough they´ve always been respected band here. They are big over here and here´s a good song by them, sung in finnish. Sellaista se on and Jumala rankaisee Helsinkiä tänä yönä (God punishes Helsinki tonight).

Finland is also known for it´s electronic scene. British media has reviews electronic weirdos Pan Sonic (really bleepy, buzzing) and house/techno of Jori Hulkkonen. Jori has also made a mix album for Tiga´s Turbo label and is gigging abroad. He´+s also collaborated with Jon Foxx on his latest album. Quite a achievement for man hailing from north part of Finland, small city called Kemi. Here´s Jori with John Foxx Never Been Here Before.

Exogenic is one hot label abroad consentrating more into breaks/psy/experimental side of things. They have released albums by Accu for example. Accu has made some excellent tracks, eventhough I never got into the albums. I have to mention here Nightfreak which is excellent, sleazy slice of discofied house. The vocals sound to me bit sleazy, but damn the track kicks ass. This is them at disco side of things. Here you go: Nightfreak get ur freak on:) Second track I like is Out Of The Blue, featuring vocals by Laura Närhi. Laura is mainly known for as vocalist on Kemopetrol, a finn trip-hop band. They were successful, but now disbanded and Laura is pursuing a solo career with pop songs. Out Of The Blue is beautiful downtempo track that is just magic. Here you go: Out Of The Blue

Moving on to tougher sounds, next logical stop is trance/drum&bass. As for trance, dance music press has given great reviews for Super8&Tab album Empire. The album is your typical progressive house/trance stuff. Well produced, but still nothing groundbreaking. Orkidea is also well-known dj/producer. Tapani as known for his mother, is known for melodic approach to progressive house/trance scene. He´s released 2 albums (if I remember right) Taika and mixed album A Place Called Happiness. He is part of the Unity collective, who used to organize parties in Helsinki which were always sold out. One of the landmarks on his career is classic track Unity, which was licensed to Gatecrasher collection. And boy what a track it is, I give you Unity.



Harder we venture and next stop is freeform/nrg/hardcore scene. Harder sounds can be summed up to one name: Proteus. Local dj who won title of best hard dance dj at hard dance awards and has been gigging a lot abroad and making his own tracks. Also he´s done remix work and released classic track London Helsinki Underground with Kevin Energy. First ever hard dance track to get into single chart in Finland. Proteus has also released official mix compilations: Pharmacy 3 Down with Sickness and Hellfire club. Unofficial and rare is his Hard NRG series, get it if you find it anywhere. As part of Säde collective, he´s reponsible for putting up memorable hard dance events and clubs here. Here´s one of his best tracks: Venla

Also worth mentioning would be Alek Szahala (releases on Nu Energy, Camel, Electronic), FINRG label which played big part on the scene. Their agency put parties up at Lahti, creating mayhem there with solid foreign guest djs. If we talk about hard dance scene, there is no way to forget these two acts, who are really classics: Carbon Based and Pain On Creation. Both making freeform and being popular live acts, they have released classics on labels such as Nu Energy (now R.I.P.), Electronic (also R.I.P.) and of course on FINRG Hard.

Here´s Pain On Creation with Lu

Carbon Based: Cyclone

And some video from Säde party, which I mentioned earlier with Dj Guld from Japan.

Until next time!

Tommi