November 2005
- Features:
* Finnish moosic just a few clicks away
* Access All Areas to witness Finnish rock poets in action
- Business: releases - deals
- Awards
- Live News
- Behind The Scenes
- Behind The Numbers
Finnish moosic just a few clicks away
For an advance listen of all 14 bands and artists performing live at the “Come hear. Finland.” Midem Opening Night, visit The Moosic Player at www.musex.fi/midem2006. The site is an easy-to-use internet radio with a full playlist covering the best music that Finland has to offer: over 60 artists, ranging from groovy urban sounds to aggressive heavy metal and hypnotic folk-pop. Just click any song title you see on the site, and it is added to your playlist. The free-of-charge, on-demand streaming radio plays only complete, good-quality tracks. This unique service, powered by Tezoma Solutions, is available until the end of February.
Access All Areas to witness Finnish rock poets in action
The 2005 edition of Access All Areas features Poets Of The Fall (PLAYGROUND MUSIC/SAM AGENCY), whose number one Finnish chart hit stunned everyone in the biz. The Poets are already a world-wide house-hold name as their tracks feature in the multimillion selling computer game Max Payne 2. Style and soundwise POTF have been compared to their American colleagues Live and R.E.M. At AAA you can dig them on the LAVA stage at 11-11.30pm, Wednesday, October 9.
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BUSINESS - releases
Astrid Swan‘s (DELPHIC RECORDINGS) new single Good Girl from her debut album out on October 31. Visit also her brand-new website www.astridswan.com. “What a striking sound from 23 year-old Finn, Astrid Swan. The orchestration is by another Finn, Jimi Tenor, and striking as it is, Astrid’s voice and lyrics are probably more so.” Record of The Day
New independent label KURU RECORDS is working to release Zooks debut album on January 11, 2006. The music for the album has already been mastered, and according to Kuru MD Sami Kuoppamäki: “The album sounds like a successful balance of straight Finnish rock’n'roll, great lyrics and strong live attitude playing, all with a warm, full sound”. Kuru has a distribution deal for Finland and all the Baltic countries with PLAYGROUND MUSIC.
The queen of the Finnish free-bass button accordion, Maria Kalaniemi (HOEDOWN/AITO RECORDS) is releasing her first internationally distributed solo album, Bellow Poetry. With twenty years as a professional behind her, Bellow Poetry shows her at her purest; Maria and her instrument in an informal, intimate, solo setting. Bellow Poetry is out now in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Baltic countries, Russia, the UK, France, Portugal, Belgium, The Netherlands and Spain.
Beats and Styles’ (BEATS AND STYLES) wicked dance hit Dance, Dance, Dance is making a major worldwide. After top-50 single’s chart results in Germany, the single and video have now been playlisted on top Italian and French TV stations. The latest countries to join in the mania are Australia (Ministry of Sound), Spain, South Africa, Poland, Ukraine and Bulgaria.
PLAYGROUND MUSIC will release some of GRANDPOP RECORDS’ recent releases throughout Scandinavia in February 2006. Instrumental rockers Laika & The Cosmonauts, rootsy alternative rockers The Latebirds, and Scandinavian Action Jazz duo Nieminen & Litmanen will all promote their upcoming releases by touring Scandinavia together as part of the Grandpop Revue 2006. Laika & The Cosmonauts’ latest album Local Warming is also available in the US, while The Latebirds are currently negotiating with various US labels on the North American release of their latest effort, Radio Insomnia.
Finnish dance duo DCX are to release their single Flying High on November 17 through A1 MUSIC. The single includes 4 mixes, one itled as DRD Dub Edit, which is arranged by Finnish trance superstar Darude. Flying High is already licensed to Singapore, Taiwan, Philippines, Malaysia, Russia, Poland and South-Africa.
The game pop group Desert Planet‘s (9PM-RECORDS) latest album Mario built my Hot Rod was released in May 2005 in the GSA and Finland. The album has been getting brilliant reviews with Germans particularly loving it. “...Their fourth album goes far beyond sheer SID-chip-purism and instead uses those quirks and bleeps only as ornaments for great instrumental-pop…” SPEX - Magazin für Popkultur
BUSINESS - deals
22-Pistepirkko, the fab-three from Utajärvi, have founded their own label, BONE VOYAGE RECORDING COMPANY, to market and relaunch their back-catalogue, and all their future recordings with greater self-determination. Now Bone Voyage Recording Company proudly presents the first new artist signings Goodnight Monster and Kytäjä plus the 22-Pistepirkko documentary Sleep Good Rock Well on DVD.
Candymanmusic.com has signed a licence deal with TMC Nordic’s dance label, The Dance Division, in Sweden. The contract covers Candyman’N'and Friends’ hit single Sunshine. The single will be released in Scandinavian and the Baltic countries in 2005.
The TUG REG label from Germany has signed Finnish guirky rock veterans Jolly Jumpers. The working title for their forthcoming album is Mobile Babylon and the co-operation is an outcome of their first German tour last spring. The long-awaited Mobile Babylon will be recorded in January 2006.
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AWARDS
Kimmo Pohjonen (ROCKADILLO/HOEDOWN) was nominated for the BBC Radio 3 Planet Award at the WOMEX world music expo in Gateshead/Newcastle, October 26-30. The category is Culture Crossing and the other nominees are: Kronos Quartet and Asha Bhosle (USA/India), Yasmin Levy (Israel) and Nitin Sawhney (India /UK). This is Pohjonen‘s second nomination for the BBC award, the first was in 2002 when the winner was Portuguese fado singer Mariza. The winners of the 2005 awards will be announced on February 18, 2006.
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LIVE
B2 Club of Moscow, Russia, will once again present a wide array of distinguished indie acts on its Finnish Independence Night, taking place on December 4th. The bill includes Mieskuoro Huutajat (BAD VUGUM), Markku Peltola and Buster Keaton Orchestra, Magyar Posse (VERDURA RECORDS), Kuolleet intiaanit (ROCKHOPPER MUSIC), Islaja (FONAL RECORDS), Kemialliset ystävät (FONAL), Es (FONAL), Regina (NEXT BIG THING), and DJ Erkko.
Having released their new album Blood Sample in September, Waltari (BLUELIGHT RECORDS) will head off on tour November 11 December 22. This metal chameleon will play twentysome gigs in Finland, the Czech Republic and Germany. Tour dates and info here >>>
The veritable comeback of glam rock icons Hanoi Rocks (WOLFGANG RECORDS) will continue with a tour of Sweden, December 716, including dates in Stockholm, Gävle, Sala, Malmö, Göteborg, and Kalmar. Tour dates and info here >>>
Two peculiar electronica acts are to appear in Germany. The lo-fi “game console music” duo Desert Planet (9PM-RECORDS) will criss-cross the country, December 917, and the equally twisted Casio-pop group Aavikko (STUPIDO RECORDS) will launch their tour on December 11, and include dates in Austria and Switzerland, too.
Iconcrash (PAROLE RECORDS) will launch their seven-day UK tour in Purple Turtle, Camden Town, on November 24. The tour will then go to Coventry, Leeds, Birmingham, Doncaster, Barnsley, and Blackburn as a prelude to the UK release of the band’s debut album Nude.
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Behind the Scenes: Finnish emo rockers Deep Insight (FULLSTEAM RECORDS) received a chance of a lifetime to show their worth to audiences around Europe, when they were picked to join the European tour of The Rasmus (PLAYGROUND). The band has managed to create quite a buzz playing to sold out clubs with their countrymen. Several Deep Insight related forums have springing up all autumn, such as deepinsightforum.tk, deepinsight.de.vu and deepinsight.jost.sk. The negative side of touring has become familiar to Deep Insight as well, since midtour the band’s instruments were stolen. 
Behind the Numbers: Opera metal became soap opera in October after Nightwish‘s (SPINEFARM) composer Tuomas Holopainen published an open letter to vocalist Tarja Turunen on the band’s website, which contained the message: You’re fired. For the following weeks the tabloids wrote dozens of pages about Nightwish, the broadsheets used thousands of words on contemplating what had happened, and on the TV-news countless minutes were used to recount what had actually occured. One thing is clear: no Finnish band has ever had as much visibility in the Finnish press ever before. Ok, two things: after all the coverage Turunen can’t return.