Eurosonic 2013: Finns Can Only Get Better

Pop quiz: name a band from Finland.

Remember The Rasmus, whose In The Shadows reached No.3 in the UK nine years ago? They’re Finnish. Lordi, The GWAR-like panto-metal band who won Eurovision in 2006? Finnish. Listened to John Peel in the 1990s? Then 22-Pistepirkko might ring a bell. Other than that, we were pretty stumped until a couple of weeks ago, when Music Finland invited Best Fit to the long-running Eurosonic Festival in Holland.

How could we resist when they offered space-rock, electro-soul, indie-pop, hip-hop and a 14-man drum machine orchestra? We couldn’t. And so we find ourselves packed off to the pretty city of Groningen, around 125 miles north-east of Amsterdam, which Eurosonic has called home since 1986 (OK, it really found its feet 10 years later). With the hulking great Martinitoren church steeple prodding the sky at its centre and a large, culture-hungry student population, it boasts enough music venues to satisfy the most rabid of fans – and it’s handily hard to get lost, despite our best late-night efforts.

A perfect spot, then, for hordes of booking agents, festival talent-spotters, managers (and a few journalists) from across Europe to descend upon for three days of mingling by day, music (and deep-fried noodles in breadcrumbs) by night. Every year, Eurosonic has a different focus country, whose musicians get to ply their wares in a more high-profile fashion than everyone else – a sonic leg-up, if you will. This year it’s Finland, hence our invitation, and hence why we’re grabbing the opportunity to interview most of the 16 Finnish acts here. We also manage to record sessions with a few of ‘em as well – indeed, you can barely walk 10 metres in Groningen without bumping into some band or other busking next to a bin in front of a camera crew.

And what bands! We arrive in Groningen on Wednesday, follow some fellow festival-goers – you could tell by their natty branded bags – to our hotel-ship (I’ll say that again: hotel-ship. A fantastic idea) and are almost immediately thrown into the first of numerous slightly surreal experiences: the European Border Breaker Awards. The EBBAs (as they’re known) celebrate Euro acts who’ve made significant inroads outside their own country; previous British winners include one Katie Melua, seen here crooning her biggest hit mere feet from our ears. Yes, since you ask, this is the closest (thing) to Katie we have ever been…

Katie Melua

This year’s UK EBBAs victor is Emeli Sande, but she’s not here and we don’t care anyway. What we do care about is that bouncy Swedes Alphabeat open the awards, and that the show’s presented by a BBC music telly veteran with a wry perma-grin who introduces himself with the words “Hello, my name is Holland” and nobody laughs. Other winners? Jangle-pop five-piece French Films win for Finland and bash out a tune; French DJ quartet C2C swap decks like they’re playing a filtered-disco edition of Find The Lady; likeable, quirky folksters Ewert and the Two Dragons take Estonia’s gong; and “Nederhop” (that’s Dutch hip-hop) denizens Dope DOD represent for the home team, while looking commendably daft.

Pascal Pinon

Whistles duly wetted, it’s time to get out there and pound Groningen’s streets. Only 10 of the total of 33 venues are open for Day 1, which makes our lives pathetically easy compared to the run-off-our-feet madness that’s to follow. We immediately thank our chosen deity that acts tend to play several times at Eurosonic, as getting in to see Northampton psych-poppers Temples downstairs at two-floor dive bar De Spieghel immediately proves impossible. Thankfully, there’s plenty of room on the top floor, where Icelandic sister act Pascal Pinon are here to calm everyone the fuck down.

I’m beginning to suspect British people are genetically predisposed to weaken in the presence of Icelandic cadence. No matter how much we’re exposed to the likes of twins Jófríður and Ásthildur, they never cease to appeal, even though under all that teen awkwardness and alveolar trilling lie a surfeit of half-songs and no excess of charisma. They know their way around a harmony but the lack of song structure leaves Pascal Pinon severely lacking in scope.

Pausing briefly at Vera (arguably Groningen’s most famed venue, having hosted early-career shows for Sonic Youth and Nirvana) to marvel at why anyone’s paying song vacuum Bastille any attention at all, we head to HuizeMaas for a quick one-two of Dutch bluesmen Birth of Joy and Finnish spacegroovers Death Hawks. The former leave us cold, but Death Hawks put on a hell of a show: not one but two of this band are wearing tassel-sleeved leather jackets. The drummer is one of them, and it’s the only item of clothing on his top half apart from a trilby. Three beards, one pair of unnecessary shades, and it’s clear this is head music for Beefheart fans. What starts as a reasonable retread of others’ glories swiftly becomes a kick-ass Can-ish free-Kraut wig-out workout of ZZ Top-ian proportions.

Mercifully, the universe senses we haven’t had quite enough brain-rearranging spacerock for one evening, swiftly serving up fellow Finns Siinai at the Grand Theatre. Sometimes the very fact four young men feel driven to show a crowd the fathomless expanses of deserted space between their well-chosen notes is reason enough to stick around. Siinai sound like they’re all in different bands and are getting to know each other by sound alone, and by christ what a conversation that is. We eavesdrop as the tension rises, palpably energising the keyboard player to flick his fringe like he’s in a TRESemmé ad. This particular strain of doomy shoegaze is compelling stuff, and makes Toy sound like One Direction.

Siinai

We end Wednesday with Fenster back at De Spieghel. Based in the creative hub that is Berlin, this experimental four-piece hail from Germany, France, Greece and the USA. But with a penchant for instrument-swapping, effects units made of Tupperware and a healthy unwillingness to commit to one time signature gives them a sort of loopy unity that’s impossible to fake. We’re talking Talking Heads-meets-Pram, as they tinker with gadgets and strings like they’re orchestrating Sunday dinner for 17. The noise they make is almost inconsequential, so engaging is the performance, but the results squiggle for themselves.

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Thursday, and the real chaos begins. Once we’ve finished a day of interviews – including Death Hawks & Siinai, who are funny and thoughtful – and sessions with the utterly charming Eva & Manu (who we sadly never get to see perform a full show) and Satellite Stories (who sound so much like Two Door Cinema Club we had to check the tape for tampering), we stop in on a session with French Films. They seem to be being feted as the future of something or other, but theirs is a defiantly retro noise, harking back to C86 with haircuts to match. No time for an interview, sadly, so it’s time to start running. Back at the Grand Theatre, Don Johnson Big Band play a sort of swing-based hip-hop the likes of which we’ve never heard before. It’s infectious and gloriously silly but talk of a unique collective from the Faroe Islands pulls us away to Vindicat. Sure enough, there we find Hamferð, dressed like Europe’s most terrifying wedding band and churning out a doom metal take on a composition that’s apparently at least 300 years old. One for the pop fans, then.

And there’s plenty of actual pop to be found, in fact: Iiris is among Estonia’s biggest teen stars, a grinning pointy-nosed pixie-child caught somewhere in the Bjork/Florence axis. Sadly her voice gives up all hope of projecting anything before the end of her danceable (well, if half the crowd weren’t sat cross-legged) set, but at least we get the irresistible ‘Just Like An Ogre’. Then it’s straight on back to HuizeMaas for LCMDF, a Finnish girlpop duo who are part Daphne & Celeste, part Utah Saints-esque combat rave, and dressed like a French & Saunders sketch about Byker Grove. They’re fantastic, needless to say: frenetic and preposterous, and hugely fun despite the evident gap between the music in their heads and what the crowd end up hearing. They’re unusual in that they write amazing choruses, but it’s the rest that’s in need of a bit of finessing – fix that, and they’re bound for glory.

An infuriating battle with an unflinching doorman ensues as we desperately try to worm our way in to see ultra-tipped Scots Chvrches at Minerva Art Academy, but alas the queues are insane and we only catch their last song. On the plus side, that song is the wonderful ‘The Mother We Share’, and crikey it’s a marvellous thing, singer Lauren looking extraordinarily comfortable in the spotlight and keyboard chap Martin surveying the room like he knows it’s his. Back at HuizeMaas again, Dutch hip-hop weirdos Skip&Die can only sound gauche in comparison, so we play a quick round of “Eurosonic tombola” and it comes up with Bologna Violenta.

A bearded Italian who treats his guitar like it’s a personal defence weapon, we’re wholly unprepared for Nicola Manzan’s dogged, scattershot assault on a room that’s so far hosted mainly winsome folkies. His schtick is this: play samples of what sound like Italian news broadcasts; attack instrument with a vigour normally reserved for whisking 97 eggs; repeat till precisely the moment the audience’s patience begins to ebb; then drop the guitar, pick up a violin and play with a grace and class that’s thoroughly disorienting; then back to the crazy-ass shredding again. It’s absurd, far closer to performance art than to music, and I’d watch it again in a second. Nothing’s realistically going to top Bologna Violenta so we call it quits – at least until we accidentally catch Danish art-punk trio Nelson Can kicking up a merry storm at the late-night bowling alley.

Friday requires the kind of meticulous planning that would fox a… fox, but we’re up for the challenge. In the afternoon, we film an interview with Jori Hulkkonen, the whip-smart Finn behind both Sin Cos Tan and the infamous Acid Symphony Orchestra (more on which later) – he’s also the Zyntherius who made electroclash classic ‘Sunglasses at Night’ with Tiga – and effusive chamber-poppers Rubik. We do our best to persuade Nelson Can that a draughty municipal stairwell is the perfect venue for an acoustic session – which they’ve literally never done before - and it turns out we’re completely right.

We finally get to see a bit more of The XX-endorsed Finnish electro duo Phantom at a pop-up show in H&M. The retail outlet lighting doesn’t do their image many favours – theirs is definitely more smoky allure than harsh neon – but Hanna Toivonen has the kind of striking voice that halts shoppers mid-purchase. We’d caught a snatch of their cover of Bon Iver’s ‘Skinny Love’ elsewhere on Wednesday, but here’s where we get to see gadgets wizz Tommi Koskinen’s much-discussed “UFO” in action. It’s an endlessly tweakable effects unit (apparently made out of an old lampshade) that reacts to movement above its various sensors, creating an effect not unlike a multi-tasking Theremin. It’s impressive to watch, even in a shop, and since Tommi’s about to publish open-source building instructions, sure to catch on elsewhere.

Acid Symphony Orchestra

There’s just time to squeeze in a final interview with earnest Finns Disco Ensemble (be warned: not disco at all) before experiencing Acid Symphony Orchestra at the majestic (and strangely reversible – the stage becomes the stalls on demand) Stadsschouwberg venue. And it turns out the rumours are true: it really is 13 hunched, tuxedo-clad men plus a conductor (the aforementioned Jori Hulkonen), teasing a slowly evolving, twisting cloud of ever-denser synth washes out of his charges’ Roland TB-303 sequencers. The atmosphere is strangely sombre, but the pressure eases somewhat when at last, an actual beat emerges from the tunemist. Nevertheless, it’s obvious this is not a time for dancing, more for respectful contemplation – a feeling punctured abruptly by the realisation that yes, that really is a litre-bottle of vodka the Orchestra are silently passing around their contemplative semi-circle.

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Highasakite

After such a performance, Norwegian folk-pop oddities Highasakite have their work cut out to impress at Vera, and at least they put the hours in by wearing as little as possible (the boys) and wielding an impressive array of instruments (the girls). If only they had the killer tunes to match the arresting visuals, we’d be cock-a-hoop. The same could be said of Rubik at the Grand Theatre, whose tilt at widescreen stadium indie-folk seems far too in hock to Arcade Fire to be truly effective. Thank goodness, then, for Pertti Kurikan Nimipäivät, scowling unreconstructed punks to a man who utilise such aggressive lighting that the front row can’t bear more than one song before being forced to retreat – only to be replaced with a fresh set of unsuspecting eyes. The band, who all have learning disabilities, are the subject of a new documentary called The Punk Syndrome, the trailer for which shows them to be amusing potty-mouthed miseryguts all.

Having recorded a truly beautiful session with him by an open fire in the sumptuous lounge of the Hotel de Doelen earlier, it’s only right we squeeze in to see some of Matthieu Chedid, aka -M-. An ostensibly enigmatic Frenchman, I’d been struck by his classy, understated delivery during the session, so it was a rude shock to find his full onstage persona is that of a supremely irritating, OTT cock-rocker. Deciding that Parma Violets are probably best avoided, a second round of Eurosonic tombola throws up another wholly unexpected success…

Normally when disco is mentioned in the context of a modern act, the sonic reality bears little relation to the term: it’s a harder, housier noise that prevails, especially (it seems) when hailing from France. 2013 EBBAs winners C2C are routinely described as disco, but theirs is definitely closer to Ed Banger than Ottawan. Not so, Jupiter. A gawky three-piece from Paris, they worship at the altar of classic disco, proper disco, none of that overcooked filtered nonsense – until the very last song, when they let the side down and dumbly grasp at contemporary sonics, damn near ruining the moment for themselves. But they’re forgiven that one faux pas, for several grin-inducing reasons.

Jupiter

One, their singer spends all her non-warbling time dancing unself-consciously centre-stage, like a guileless secretary who’s accidentally stumbled onto a podium. Two, her voice itself is a pitch-perfect cut-glass instrument that fits Jupiter’s glorious, joyous thud and ultra-catchy melody lines like a bodycon bandage dress. Three, their minimal stage set (basically just a back-lit sign bearing the band’s name) keeps threatening to fall over, requiring much endearing mid-song manoeuvring. And four… oh for heaven’s sake, just dance.

Beat that, Groningen. German electro-ravers Captain Capa have a good go back at HuizeMaas, but for all their wild enthusiasm and mindless hollering, the substance is lacking. Finnish monster Huoratron fares far better in the back room of the same venue, kicking up the dust of a proper club atmosphere with relentless beats and the odd killer breakdown. But the final surprise is still to come, and it’s a long bloody way away.

Simplon looks like a fire station and may indeed once have been one, but inside it’s definitely clubville. Our final act of Eurosonic 2013 are weighed down by a doubly awful name: Terribly Overrated Youngsters (I know, right?), known as TOY for short (ohhhh dear). This is a massive crying shame, because what they’re doing is creating full-band brass-led live versions of Daft Punk, Justice and other appropriate rug-cutting classics – and they’re really astonishingly good at it. I spend half my time dancing, the other half just gawping like a guppy at their virtuosity: there’s no sampler I can make out, no DJ filling in the gaps – just an irresistible assault on the senses, played by eight German conservatorium students who should know better but gleefully don’t. We couldn’t invent a more deliciously perfect way to end our Eurosonic 2013 experience.

Photos by Sebastien Dehesdin