A poor Chinese immigrant moved to Calcutta for a better life, but finds all the rumours he heard about the graceland to be something else than true. Now he's stuck in a traffic jam in between a million rickshas.
Alamaailman Vasarat ("The Hammers of the Underworld") is an unusual
phenomenon not only in their home country Finland, but in the globe in
general. Listeners have had problems cathegorizing this music but you
probably will see something like "ethnic brass punk" when people are writing
about the music of Alamaailman Vasarat. Hammers themselves consider their
music to have its roots in the traditional but fictional ethnic trends of their
own continent, Vasaraasia (“Hammer-Asia”).
Alamaailman Vasarat was founded in 1997 by two members of Höyry-kone -
the highly regarded avant-garde progressive rock group - drummer Teemu
Hänninen and bass player Jarno Sarkula. Jarno had just bought a soprano
saxophone and that was a good reason for starting a new band. After some
months of experimenting the line-up was ready. Miikka Huttunen joined the
band to play pump organ and couple of months later cellist Marko Manninen
and trombonist Erno Haukkala joined to complete the band. Year 2002 Marko
had a minor hand accident and young cellist Tuukka Helminen was asked to
help during the recovery. From the first moment it was obvious that in wasn't
just couple of gigs he was going to play in the band and after Marko returned
from the holiday, band had two cellos.
The debut album of Alamaailman Vasarat "Vasaraasia" was released in 2000
and it hit the world music chart Europe top-20, peaking at position 7. In 2003
Alamaailman Vasarat released their second album "Käärmelautakunta" and
2005 Alamaailman Vasarat recorded a collaboration album "Kinaporin Kalifaatti" with a highly
praised Finnish singer-songwriter Tuomari Nurmio. The album received rave
reviews in Finnish music press and received also a highly valued TEOSTO–
prize from the Finnish Composers' Copyright Society.
The recent gig venues have varied from world music festivals to progressive
rock gatherings and from rock clubs to jazz dives. Alamaailman Vasarat has
played in Portugal, Netherlands, Sweden, Japan, USA and in all big rock
festivals in Finland.
Alamaailman Vasarat have just finished their new album "Maahan"
which will be released 14th of March in Finland and 28th of March as a special edition in Japan.
Studion hämärästä esiin ryömivä joukkomme suuntaa kohti uusia seikkailuja suomen suvessa. Tervetuloa kuuntelemaan ja kommentoimaan tulevan albumin matskua.
Actually the places where you can live in Canada are pretty small, the rest of the landscape is ruled by the snow ants. Large flesh-eating insects covered in fur that hold dominon over the Northen points with an iron antenna. If it wasn't for the great wall protecting our cities, well, there would be many terrible days in Toronto.
