It’s come to something when you have to translate the title, never mind the lyrics.
I’ve been dreading this day but I knew it would come eventually – when I had to work entirely off a Finnish script. It lies somewhere between Sanskrit and hieroglyphics on the Scale of Greatest Linguistic Difficulty.
But at the same time it sort of rolls off the tongue, too. I could listen all day to someone like Stinako for example even if she was singing the Helsinki phone book, name by name.
And to be fair Antti Reikko did offer to send an English translation, but time waits for no man and we’ve another bumper weekend coming up. And so to business.
A.Reikko & Kaupungin ääni translates as A.Reikko & The City Voice, suggesting it’s like a newspaper, commenting on in the ins and outs and ups and downs and indiscretions of Finnish society. Has the Prime Minister been to the disco this week? At first I thought it might be as you see on a van driving past you in the street, ‘A.Reikko & Sons, Builders Merchants’.
Apparently it is a new band, led by A.Reikko (Antti), who was the front man of Koria Kitten Riot, a glorious band name and one I’d expect to see in Eurovision. He also released a solo album of Finnish indie rock in the spring of 2022.
It is a five-piece indie rock outfit from Helsinki and Turku, whose members’ history includes a comprehensive sample of Finnish indie bands
Kaupungin ääni has three guitars, bass, drums and five singers, which is getting into The Osmonds territory and they promote themselves as “the alternative rock of the 90s and 00s meets the songwriting tradition of the 60s and 70s.”
Actually that is pretty accurate.
‘Hulluus’ translates as ‘Madness’ but there are no baggy trousers here and it is quite a cultured piece.
It immediately put me in mind of those 1960s soft rock songs from the likes of Herman’s Hermits and especially The Hollies. Indeed it would fit nicely into a collection of Hollies hits that never were; only because someone lost them, and then they were recently discovered in a suitcase Graham Nash left behind at Vantaa Airport.
There are a couple of rich and very tasty guitar breaks. And that harmonising, man!
I think we need an English version of ‘Hulluus’.
The debut album, ‘Hulluus, rakkaus ja maailmanloppu’(‘Madness, Love and the End of the World’), which sounds like it could be an existential novel, will be released on 19th September 2025 in collaboration with Karhuvaltio Records and the new Sipsin älpeet record label.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/a.reikko
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anttirok/
