PAAVOHARJU
Laulu Laakson Kukista
FF55
Fonal Records 2008
12 Tracks. 35mins03secs

Hailing from the small provincial town of Savonlinna in South Eastern Finland, Paavoharju are self-proclaimed born again Christians. Whether this permeates their music in any way is, for anyone who doesn’t understand Finnish at least, a total mystery. Whether this is even relevant to the music at all is anyone’s guess. What is clear however is that nothing could have prepared anyone for the oneiric pastoral beauty of the band’s debut album, Yha Hamaraa, released on Fonal in 2005. Neither folk nor pop nor experimental, Paavoharju blended all these and much more besides, carving extremely pretty melodies out of rough nebulous sound collages, in turn arranged into ephemeral songs and miniature cinematic vignettes. Yha Hamaraa was a magnificent timeless record with no real equivalent, a collection of unlikely pop songs with a very sharp edge.

Three years on, Paavoharju open the doors of their magic kingdom once again, eager to take anyone willing to step in by the hand and lead them through a labyrinth of sounds and atmospheres, pointing here at delicate reveries set in crackles and statics, or there at dense layers of fog stabbed by vibrant blades of ethereal vocals. Continue Reading »