This was the headline last week on Maj Karma’s website. Previously the band was expecting to release their 9th studio album this August, but drummer Janne Savolainen’s dog Brutus destroyed the hard drive containing the bass and drum tracks. Some of the material was salvageable, but enough was lost that the band chose to delay the release. They are now expecting the album to be ready for March 28, 2009 with a single in January, but they are continuing with their summer tour plans. (Unfortunately for me, all dates are in their native Finland.) Some samples of works-in-progress are available in their “Studio Journal” (see section Studiopäiväkirjaa).

Maj Karma, formerly known as Maj Karman kauniit kuvat (Maj Karma’s pretty pictures), play punk-, industrial- and metal-infused hard rock with Finnish lyrics. Their 8th album, Ukkonen, was certified gold in Finland.

OK, so I can only speak from hearsay and what I have read, but it seems to me that the Finns fill their long, glorious summer days with music — with tours, of course, and huge annual festivals like Ruisrock and Ankkarock, but also with a flurry of album releases. Paul has already mentioned Turmion Kätilöt’s U.S.C.H.! but here are a few more points of interest from the land of the thousand lakes.

Apulanta are celebrating summer with their 4-track Kesä-EP released June 11 2008. This is sure to please fans of their previous album, Eikä vielä ole edes ilta, and indeed, like most of Apulanta’s recent releases, it debuted at number 1 in the Finnish music charts.

Still on June 11, heavy-metal veterans Tarot released Undead Indeed, their first live DVD (available in a 2DVD or 2CD set), including material from their recent Crows Fly Black tour, interviews with the band and a couple of videos.

Last but far from least, June 11 gave us Marraskuun singlet, a collection of the seven singles with their accompanying B-sides from Viikate’s 2007 releases Marraskuun lauluja I and II. Including gems such as their cover of the Leevi and the Leavings classic “Teuvo, maanteidan kuningas”, this is a must for any fan, or an inexpensive way for the casual listener to get a hold of highlights of two powerful albums.

But more is yet to come! Kotiteollisuus have been in the studio working on a cover-EP Sotakoira to be released August 13 and pop-rock ensemble Egotrippi are releasing their seventh full-length album for which single Hyvästi naiset is due out in July. Finally, I’ve also read something about yet another release from Apulanta planned for August, but I must admit, I have not yet pinned this down (my Finnish is poor and it makes digging for facts a little bit slow).

EDIT: I forgot to mention where you can find these albums. Unfortunately, I have not found any good North American source for Finnish music, so I recommend ordering direct from Finland. Record Shop X has the June releases already in stock (and Sotakoira available for pre-orders) and will certainly carry the others as soon as they come out.

Hello all! My name is Paul, and I will be a semi-regular contributor to this blog. My Nordic music interest lies primarily in Finland, but I hope to be able to provide a fairly balanced look at the music of the rest of this northern rim as well! In that vein, my inaugural post is about the Icelandic one-man-band Örn Elías Guðmundsson, better known as Mugison. I figure the best way to do this is with a review of his most recent album.

Mugison - Mugiboogie
I first heard this guy live as the opening act for Queens of the Stone Age, so my initial expectations and impressions were naturally going to be a little different than the album would be. Most bands sound much louder and heavier live, but based on the set that he played I was expecting a hard rock sound that verged a little on metal (on one of the live tracks he used the death growl) The first four tracks held up my initial expectations pretty well, as they were all tracks he played live, but then things started to change. While listening to these songs, since I was enjoying them so much, I went and did a little research, and discovered that apparently Mugison is actually an artist usually in the vien of fellow Icelanders Sigur Ros, which as anyone familiar with their sound is practcially the antithesis of hard rock. The rest of the album conforms to his earlier work fairly well, and it doesn’t really veer back into hard rock (although one later track was the one with the death growl, it was very different than the live version, as this was odd experimental soundscape with muffled growled vocals)

Naturally I was disappointed that it wasn’t all like the absolutely killer opening tracks, and I do suspect a lot of the people hat bought the album at the show feel similarly, but after I got past that I did start to appreciate the album as it is. There are some bluesy and country elements in Mugison’s experimental tracks, and if you were to take out the hard rock tracks it would be a very well done post rock album. I’ve bought his earlier two albums, though I haven’t really listened to them yet, and I can hear a distinct evolution in his sound. Unfortunately I’m not really a huge fan of the softer post rock movement (I am however quite familiar with the so called post metal movement) so I can’t really compare Mugison to anyone other than Sigur Ros on these tracks, but from what I can tell he does them very well. They’re quite pretty and appealing to listen to, and his voice has a much deeper tone (this is relative, mind) than Sigur Ros, which is much more suited to my taste. There are also more in the way of conventional rock structuring in Mugison’s music than some post rock artists, which makes it a little easier to listen to in my opinion. I highly recommend the last three quarters of the album to post rock fans.

The problem to me is that the first couple tracks feel like they should be a totally different disc, maybe an EP, since they have so little in common with the rest of the album when played in order. There’s this blast of bluesy hard rock, replete with somewhat sexed up lyrics a la Danko Jones, and because they’re so put together it doesn’t flow well. I find myself often stopping the playback now after the first four tracks unless I skip them altogether, which of course detracts from the overall experience. That said, the first tracks are very, very good in the style they’re in, and I think Mugison clearly has it in him to release an absolutely killer hard rock album if he wants to.

So what’s my final verdict? Taken as a whole, it feels a bit schizophrenic, like Mugison started to make a hard rock album and chickened out at the last minute, or decided to try something new on a regular album. I don’t know the story behind the new sound, but I’d urge him to try maing a whole album. The set he performed was very, very good and he made a fan of me, even though he’s primarily the shoegazer post rock stuff, but were he to release a whole album of songs as quality as the first ones he’d win legions more I suspect. I can’t say I would recommend anything but the beginning to hard rock fans, but the latter half is very well done for what it is.