Kaspar is a new band formed by two extremely talented songwriters John McGregor & Mikael Hakkarainen. Third member of the band is Tuomas Hakkarainen. They’ve already recorded their debut in New York with the help of producer Malcolm Burn (who has previously worked with people like Bob Dylan, Emmylou Harris, Lisa Germano, Giant Sand, Patti Smith) and are currently looking for a label to release it. The record should be out and available sometime in the autumn.

Yours truly is obviously really excited about Kaspar. John McGregor’s debut album Joki was onechord.net album of the year 2005 and his second album Maa ei oo pimee reached #2 spot in 2007. And because I’ve also really enjoyed Mikael H’s previous work, I would be largely surprised if I didn’t fall in love with Kaspar’s upcoming album. Opening track of the album Phoenix is already available on their myspace if you want to take a sneak peak. I suggest that you do, because the song is absolutely marvellous. First reaction is that Bella Union should sign them up now. I think this could fit well into their catalog that contains things like Midlake and Vetiver. I don’t like terms indie folk or alternative folk much, but if you are into bands labelled as that, you definitely should check out Kaspar. Well obviously you should just check them out it you happen to like great music, because that’s what this definitely is.

Kaspar at myspace

So Lee: Norway

When thinking about writing a blog entry about Kaspar, I remembered So Lee and a song called Norway. It’s still one of my favourite songs from the Hakkarainen brothers. I really loved it back then in 2002 and few days ago I checked out whether they still have it online. They did and yes, my love towards this song hasn’t faded away. For me, it still sounds as great as it did then. So if you wanna hear a great guitar pop song or for example want to celebrate Norway’s victory in the eurovision song contest by listening a song called Norway, hit the link below and download it from the solee.com website.

So Lee Website