A small late night video post. If this recent folk/americana direction of this blog feels dreadfully boring to you, here’s a great blast of Finnish rock’n’roll. You can practice the beautiful Finnish language while you’re at it. Ok, this Pienet Koirat song might be a bit of a challenge even for a native speaker. A damn good song though and I love the video where people try to do some karaoke sing along to a song that they have never heard. Plus there’s cats too and well above all.. I love cats. Lähehä is the second single from their forthcoming album.
Moving on to the gorgeous new Kynnet song Raaputa kaljatuoppiin. It’s an outtake from their forthcoming album Vähät välittää that is due out on 12th of October on Svart Records.
I try to make a few of these quick round up posts as a vacation activity. This time three fairly new Finnish releases that matter to me.
The new Jukka Nousiainen album Ei enää kylmää eikä pimeää is my favourite Finnish album of the year so far. It’s got a really important message too. Of course everything it teaches should already be even naively obvious to all of us, but unfortunately that doesn’t seem to be the case and a horrible lack of empathy seem to be like a running theme in this current world. Caring and kindness really isn’t that hard. Let’s do that instead. There’s no reason not to. This is Jukan tehdas from the new album that is now out and available on Jukan musiikki.
Next up is the new self-titled Tuomas Palonen album that came out 11th of May on Palatsi. I really loved the Kuparilinna album a couple of years ago and this one does fall if not on the same ball park than at least pretty close by. This is a very endearing 60s/70s-influenced psychedelic folk album. Cynics beware. This will melt your heart.
Let’s wrap up this little blog entry with a song from the new Kuumat siivet EP Tänä iltana. This song Itke hänet pois won my heart over the first time I heard it and I’m happy that there’s now a recorded version too. So wonderful. Listen/buy the whole beautiful thing over at Bandcamp.
I’m back home from the great STHLM Americana festival. It was a good reminder of how much I love that music and both the people who write it and the people who listen to it. Somehow it also gave me a boost to continue this silly onechord adventure, because like the readers know I’ve had an ongoing battle with myself for several years about the relevance of this and whether there’s any point to do it anymore, if I don’t have the energy to do it as well as I would like to. Right now continuing makes more sense than it has for a rather long time. So thanks for that STHLM Americana. Nothing will happen this week though, because it’s midsummer next weekend and my day job mostly consists of packing potatoes. So at least Finns can fully understand that my only goal at the moment is to just survive this work week. Blog has to wait. But a quick video post before that.
My main goal for the festival was to see John Moreland and John Calvin Abney play together and the charismatic duo both just dropped their new music videos a day before the festival. First we have John Moreland’s new video Slow Down Easy. It’s one of the highlights of his 2017 album Big Bad Luv and Bobby Dean Orcutt and Clay Flores have made a beautiful and moving video that do justice to the magnificent song and if possible even lifts it to a new level.
Next up is John Calvin Abney who backs John Moreland on stage, but is also a great songwriter himself. One of the best parts of the trip was to meet John Calvin Abney for the first time, because we have been friends on this internet-thingy for some years and it was nice to finally meet in person too. John Calvin Abney has a new beautiful album called Coyote out on Black Mesa Records. Here’s the new video for album outtake Get Your House In Order.
And finally something new from Finland as well. This isn’t exactly STHLM Americana related, but it’s a great song that I’ve been meaning to post for a few weeks. Plus they mention John Moreland as an influence on their website and if I’m not completely mistaken, the lead singer of this song was also waiting in the same hot staircase as I was in order to get into the Södra Teatern to see the two Johns above play their hearts out. But yeah, it’s the new single from the Finnish roots-influenced trio Iron Country Sisters. I saw them first time when they supported Daniel Romano a couple of years ago. They sang their way into my heart on that concert and I have been following closely ever since. They are currently working on their debut full-length album that should see the light of day in fall 2018. I’m extremely eager to hear that later in the year. Meanwhile I’ll keep on listening this latest single Go Slow over and over again.
