[atlantaprog] Re: Finnish Prog

Woody Harris wrote:
I am trying to a special on Finnish Prog bands in the near future, but I have little or no idea where to begin. If anyone out there has any suggestions, I would be very grateful. Thanks, 
Woody
Well, my favorite Finnish "prog" musician (he's hard to categorize) is Kimmo Pohjonen. He plays accordion, and has recently been collaborating electronics wizard Samuli Kosminen as Kluster, and adding Trey Gunn and Pat Mastelotto from King Crimson as "KTU", as well as working with the Kronos Quartet ("Uniko"). Wigwam is sort of considered the classic "oldie" prog band from Finland (early 70's, contemporaneous with the old Yes, Genesis, KC, etc) - the album "Being" from 1974 is probably your best bet. There was also a good prog band in the 70s named Kalevala (after the Finnish epic poem) that is worth hunting down.
A lot of the better rock bands from Finland are obviously metal bands, some of which have proggy tendencies. Children of Bodom, Sonata Arctica, and HIM are all popular. They're more from the flashy technical side of things (think Judas Priest), but might be worth poking around with. My personal favorite Finnish metal band is Finntroll, which isn't at all proggy unless you consider polka-driven metal just weird enough to qualify.
In their own weird little category (which is sort of proggy) is Apocalyptica, the well-known cello metal group. If you haven't hear them, they do heavy cello covers of Metallica and the like, and they're really very good.

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