Two new Finnish indie releases today, and the first comes from a band who have a pretty sizeable reputation stretching over the decades, but similarly to The Sugarrush (featured last week), haven’t released anything now for a few years.
Mummypowder are celebrating their 25th anniversary on the music scene, which is an incredible milestone, although pretty unfortunate that it’s landed in such a bad year for the music industry. Behind Mummypowder is the much respected singer songwriter Janne Lehtinen, and the band built a small but impressive reputation on the international stage all those years ago, with appearances at SXSW festivals and gigs in New York, amongst other achievements.
Obviously NMR wasn’t around at the time, but I had heard their name referenced a number of times, including quite recently when we featured Gim Kordon, as there was some tenuous band connections between the two, so this has been a good excuse to go back and listen to their old material. ‘Consternation! Uproar!’ Is a pretty good place to start, with higher tempo tracks like ‘Don’t Hold Your Breath’ appealing in particular, alongside softer offerings such as ‘Always Changing’,
Anyway they have a brand new track called ‘Sara’s Song’, and it’s a lovely comeback after all this time. Janne Lehtinen is clearly just the most natural of songwriters, and it’s an instantly engaging track. It really feels like I’ve known this band for years already, with an easy going melody and nicely balanced production alongside it.
The Finnish indie scene really has / had some hidden gems, what with the likes of Delay Trees, The Stillwalkers and Koria Kitten Riot. All of them are welcome back in NMR anytime in the next 25 years.