Four Arms to Hold You: Jari Raaste, Hulda Huima, Salaliitto & Sur-rur

Another one of these silly Four Arms posts for tonight, but don’t worry these will stop or at least slow down after tomorrow. This time it’s a small finnhits video special. Or well at least these should-be hits. First up is the brand new super catchy smooth soulshaker Ilmalaiva from Jari Raaste. There’s a 7″ single coming out on the legendary Fonal Records (pre-order a copy here) on the 5th of July, but there’s already a groovy music video rising from the horizon.

Jari Raaste at Facebook

Diving back into the Kalevi Suopursu video vaults for this next one. He directed both the Jari Raaste video above and this one by Hulda Huima. Kind of a shame that I already posted my favourite Finnish song of the year Halla a few days ago, because this could have been a Kalevi edition of this series. Anyway, the big news here is that there’s a new Hulma Huima album Maa coming out on Helmi Levyt on the 16th of August. The lead single Outo tyttö has been out there in the atk-world for a few months, but has been included here only on the playlist. Which is just wrong and criminal, because I love her songs. Doesn’t everybody. So here’s finally the video for Outo tyttö.

Hulda Huima at Facebook

Next we are going on a drive with Salaliitto. Their new album Puolet came out on Soit Se Silti on the 15th of February and it’s definitely another one that hasn’t gotten enough attention on this little blog. Thankfully I think all the Finnish readers know that they are marvellous and my random ramblings isn’t at all necessary. There’s a fairly new music video outtake from this great album. Valtatie 8 is the song and the music video was directed by Tommi Rantamäki.

Salaliitto Website

This last one isn’t a music video, but I thought I’ll wrap this one together with a couple of new songs from the all-time great Sur-rur. Their 2019 album carries the name Hattarahiukset and it came out 23rd of March on Roku Records / Joteskii Groteskii. If you’ve ever wanted to hear a Finnish rock song that dives deep into the circa ’70-’75 era of Fleetwood Mac, your dreams have been answered. This brilliant album also investigates the current state of hitchhiking, admires the wondrous crime solving capability of Miss Marple, battles the radicalized bread crumb with a vacuum and eventually falls asleep in the middle of a pizza. In some blissfully weird way, it all makes perfect sense.

Sur-rur at Facebook

Four Arms to Hold You is an ongoing feature with a weird name. It might not contain a whole lot of words, but it does contain a whole lot of love towards the featured songs. Basicly this is just four albums / songs / artists that have done their part in holding me together and therefore I want to tell the world or the seven readers of this blog how much I love them. Not entirely sure do these kind of posts serve any kind of purpose and I do hope I manage to write longer posts too. Right now it just feels like the playlists and these kind of short posts are the only way to keep this dear hobby alive. Plus it’s really the music that matters, not my random ramblings and these posts will always contain magical music.

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Four Arms to Hold You: The Country Side of Harmonica Sam, Shawn Hess, Charlie Collins and Charlie Marie

A couple more of these still to come and then I’ll get back to the more normal update frequency. This time this is a bit of a suited up country & western special. Beginning the trip from Malmö, Sweden with the latest The Country Side of Harmonica Sam single My First Broken Heart (Since My Last Broken Heart) that came out on El Toro Records on the 16th of May. A mighty good band if you are into real country music, honky tonk and 50s rock’n’roll.

The Country Side of Harmonica Sam Website

Next location is almost a world away in Laramie, Wyoming. Country singer-songwriter is Shawn Hess a completely new find one for me and I didn’t know him before this album came out on the 24th of May. Records like World Away is actually the reason why it makes sense for me to make the weekly playlist. I find treasures like this when I’m searching for all the possible interesting new releases every weekend. There’s a lot of excellent country songwriting and storytelling on this one. A pretty broken-hearted collection of songs for sure, but still so damn enjoyable.

Shawn Hess at Facebook

The world tour takes this blog entry to Tamworth, Australia. This is also taking a step towards more modern territories like indie rock, but the country storytelling tradition definitely isn’t absent from this one either. Snowpine is a new album by Charlie Collins and it came out on 31st of May on Mirror Records. Here’s an excellent live versio of album track Mexico.

Charlie Collins at Facebook

Tonight’s journey ends in Nashville, Tennessee with a song from the new self-titled Charlie Marie EP that came out on the 3rd of May. Ok, maybe that’s not a suit, but the EP is wonderful, full of country sounds and engaging storytelling and is therefore not a bad fit with the other Charlie and the gentlemen. The magnificent opener Rhinestones wraps up this little blog entry.

Charlie Marie Website

Four Arms to Hold You is an ongoing feature with a weird name. It might not contain a whole lot of words, but it does contain a whole lot of love towards the featured songs. Basicly this is just four albums / songs / artists that have done their part in holding me together and therefore I want to tell the world or the seven readers of this blog how much I love them. Not entirely sure do these kind of posts serve any kind of purpose and I do hope I manage to write longer posts too. Right now it just feels like the playlists and these kind of short posts are the only way to keep this dear hobby alive. Plus it’s really the music that matters, not my random ramblings and these posts will always contain magical music.

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Four Arms to Hold You: Mike Adams At His Honest Weight, Teal Moss, Brack Cantrell and Daniel Markham

A busy day ahead, but first I’ll make one of these little blog entries. Today the story begins from Bloomington, Indiana with the brand new Mike Adams At His Honest Weight single/video Do You One Better. The advance singles have all been great melodic pop treasures and therefore I have high expectations for the new album There Is No Feeling Better that will be released this Friday 14th of June by Joyful Noise Recordings.

Mike Adams at His Honest Weight Website

For the rest of this post, we stay in Texas. I’m not 100% sure, but I think Denton is the more precise location for all of the rest. First up is the new Teal Moss album Dewy that came out on the 3rd of May. I came across this after I got an email notification about a new Brack Cantrell single from Bandcamp (see next entry) and after that I did some google searching of what’s going ahn in the Denton scene and found this lovely record that he co-produced. Teal Moss is an awesome new music project of Steven Fischer from the US Presidents that I’ve featured a few times on the weekly playlists. Here’s the lovely soft rock single/video of the lead single Lewis that also features a super cute dog. So what’s not to love.

Teal Moss at Facebook

And not so surprisingly the next entry for today is the new Brack Cantrell single Blissful Blues. I’ve been following his work since his 2015 solo album Glancing Glow and finally there’s a new album on the horizon. Blissful Blues is the lead single from his forthcoming album Famine or Feast that is coming out in the summer of 2019 and it’s pretty damn great. I thought I had checked if it was on Spotify too for the weekly playlist, but maybe I didn’t because it sure is there now. Well it goes on to the next playlist and meanwhile you can listen to beautiful single below.

Brack Cantrell Website

And even less surprisingly due to the Denton, TX connection, I’ll close this little blog entry with a song from the latest Daniel Markham EP In Space that came out in February. Kind of criminal that it has taken me this long to feature a song from this one outside the weekly playlist. Here’s the gorgeous ending song Crickets that shows a slightly different side of Daniel Markham.

Daniel Markham Website

Four Arms to Hold You is an ongoing feature with a weird name. It might not contain a whole lot of words, but it does contain a whole lot of love towards the featured songs. Basicly this is just four albums / songs / artists that have done their part in holding me together and therefore I want to tell the world or the seven readers of this blog how much I love them. Not entirely sure do these kind of posts serve any kind of purpose and I do hope I manage to write longer posts too. Right now it just feels like the playlists and these kind of short posts are the only way to keep this dear hobby alive. Plus it’s really the music that matters, not my random ramblings and these posts will always contain magical music.

Continue Reading