Nordic Spotlight
The best music and music festivals in Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands
Finnish band Pastis’ “Around Here” (from the album’s debut album Circles) is more than a fun song about having fun. In the song’s three-and-a-half minutes, Pastis’ frontman paints pictures of fun nights out on the town, but the journey toward feeling mentally assured enough to have fun in the first place is just as important a […]
Lake Jons doesn’t stop. The folk-rock project of Helsinki-based Jooel Jons released its self-titled debut album last year to fanfare from major Finnish radio stations, inclusion in Spotify playlists around the world, and a set at the incredible Finnish event known as Flow Festival (to which tickets are currently on sale). “Circle” isn’t from that album […]
Soon enough, it’ll be that time of year again: Flow Festival, which began in 2004, will return to Finland’s capital of Helsinki for a three-day extravaganza that pairs the names American music listeners know and love with the hottest artists popular in the Nordic countries. If you’re interested in heading to Flow Festival, then we have […]
EYEBOMBS by p u n e e sTampere, Finland’s Punees don’t need concrete imagery to make great songs. “Eyebombs,” their most recent single, depicts beasts, monsters, and ghosts against a wiry barrage of eighth-note guitar chords. The contrast between the song’s unignorable, minor-key but not quite melancholic stomp and the abstractions of its lyrics make […]
Last year, nostalgia for the ’90s reached a massive pop music peak with Charli XCX and Troye Sivan’s “1999” song and video. The song is replete with references to boy band stars of days past, which the video matches with over-the-top costume design and choreography. It was so widely discussed and beloved that it became […]
Finnish artist Jaakko Eino Kalevi has been releasing music in some form or another for over a decade now, but full-length albums by him are relatively infrequent occasions. This Friday, he’ll release his newest, Out of Touch, via Weird World, the Domino Records imprint that also released his 2015 self-titled album. “People in the Centre of […]
Joordan Mackay‘s two members have never met in real life. The Finnish duo’s songs come together without the two people involved in it ever meeting face to face. Sure, the story of a band’s members meeting on the Internet before uniting in person for one, and then many, jam sessions is already a familiar tale, […]
Happy album release day to Tuomo & Markus! The Finnish duo, whom we first encountered at SXSW 2017 and have since loved, today release their debut album, Dead Circles, via Grandpop Records. Tuomo & Markus (jazz/soul artist Tuomo Prättälä and singer-songwriter Markus Nordenstreng) are among the wave of artists not based in America that love Americana music. […]
We’ve posted in the past about the greatness of Finnish avant garde ensemble Kemialliset Ystävät, but their genius goes beyond the work they do as a collective. It’s the music that their individual members make outside the fold that continues spreading the gospel of weird, wonderful sounds. That’s as clear as ever on the forthcoming release […]
Finnish electronic pop duo Hymner like to say that they make music in a “Scandinavian style.” Or as they put it recently, “melancholic indie with a beat that makes you wanna dance and leave your troubles behind.” Mission accomplished, gents, as your new song has us feeling carefree and ready to get on our bikes […]