lately i’ve been listening a lot to some finnish bands and artists, mainly tenhi (väre, maaäet, airut:aamujen), timo rautiainen ja trio niskalaukaus (kylmä tilä, rajaportti) and eicca toppinen (black ice soundtrack). below you can listen to the fabulous soing suoti from tenhi, a beautiful progressive folk/neofolk piece.
just saw 臥虎藏龍, which translates to crouching tiger, hidden dragon (imdb). not the usual version though, but one with live music added by a conductor with an “orchestra” of three djs, and a singer. shown in a ewz powerhouse. i haven’t seen the movie before, so i can’t comment on how this version compares to the original one.
but i can say that this one was really good. both the movie, a chinese martial art movie, and the new background music, featuring noise, strange beats, even swiss folk music, are good, in their own, and especially as a composition. i liked in particular most of the noise parts, which seem to make the scenes more intense.
and it made me think about the concept in general. reminds me a bit of dead man, one of my favorite movies, whose soundtrack is what neil young improvised on his electric guitar while watching the movie. and it makes me think how a movie featuring a sound track made by sunn o))) would be… must be fantastic…
in 2003, the finnish humppa metal band finntroll released an accoustic album called visor om slutet (songs about the end). unfortunately (for me), it took me four years to find out about it. it features a variety of folk songs: some rythmic, intense and melodic themes, some sound scapes which, when i close my eyes and let my thoughts go, paint beautiful pictures inside my head. it feels like roaming through ancient finnish forests, as in a fairy tale… so beautiful… meeting tweeting birds, trees swaying in the wind, trolls, chanting shamans… so many different instruments… if you have never listened to this, you definitely should. in my opinion, it’s worth every minute of time spend hearing it (even if you don’t like metal).
