I really love the Finnish language, which I consider my instrument. I think it sounds great in rock: it's harsh, but also extremely beautiful. The long vowels and hard consonants – I find it simply perfect
– Ismo Alanko

All music is folk music… I don't play traditional Finnish folk or American folk… Rather something that has to do with the Finnish spirit, with Finnish nature, something along those lines.
– Ismo Alanko

Contents

1. Between Helsinki and Joensuu: the new voice of Finnish-language rock
2. Hassisen Kone: the sharp-edged rock of the sausage slicer
3. Sielun Veljet: not a band, but a cult
4. Ismo Alanko: in search of a new form
5. La Fondazione Alanko: the freedom of reinvention
6. Ismo Alanko Teholla: the sound of subtraction
7. A journey without end

Between Helsinki and Joensuu: the new voice of rock in suomi

When people talk about Finnish music abroad, their minds quickly jump to symphonic metal or gothic rock: Nightwish, Him, Amorphis, Children of Bodom. Yet the real revolution had already begun elsewhere: amid the synths and sharp guitars of new wave, in the underground clubs of Helsinki and Tampere, on the records that spoke to young people in a new language – suomi.

During the Eighties, Finland went through a fertile and fascinating season, far from the spotlight but rich in creative ferment. A scene capable of combining punk influences, post-punk, singer-songwriter rock and linguistic experimentation. In the late Seventies, the country went through rapid transformations: urbanization, economic crisis, youth alienation and Anglo-American influence paved the way for new forms of expression. The new generations sought a voice of their own, different from the patriotic folk of the past. The choice of Finnish was not just stylistic but also a matter of identity. Punk exploded in Finland in rough, poetic and sarcastic forms, rooted in social reality.

In this climate of ferment, Ismo Alanko emerged as a central figure. First with Hassisen Kone, then with Sielun Veljet, then as a solo artist and finally with the Säätiö project, he traversed and reinvented every phase of contemporary Finnish music. He gave voice to youthful unrest, urban mysticism and everyday neurosis, with rare versatility and a deeply personal style of writing. His ability to make Finnish sound musical and rhythmic turned it into a powerful tool for rock.
Finland in the Eighties wasn't just distorted guitars and folklore: it was street poetry, shamanic rock and anarchy in 4/4 time. And if today many people recall the dark sounds of Nordic metal, it's because someone had already lit the fuse before them, with sharp words, distortion, keyboards and a language that had finally come alive. Ismo Alanko was the catalyst and the alchemist behind all of it – and that's where our journey begins.

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Hassisen Kone: the sharp-edged rock of the sausage slicer

Ismo Kullervo Alanko was born on November 12, 1960 in Joensuu, in eastern Karelia. He grew up in a cultured, musical family: his father was a doctor, his mother taught music, and his brothers all went into artistic careers – Ilkka became the frontman of Neljä Ruusua, Petri a flautist in the Zurich Philharmonic Orchestra. But it was Ismo who stood out for his precocious talent and creative restlessness.

As a teenager he studied cello at the conservatory, before being swept up by the lure of rock. Having moved to Helsinki to study, he came into contact with the capital's alternative scene and began writing in Finnish, influenced by local artists such as the irreverent singer-songwriter Juice Leskinen. The summer of 1979, spent in Stockholm, marked a turning point: there he sensed how the emerging new wave was also breathing new life into the Finnish scene, offering that freshness which seemed to be missing back home.

Upon returning to Joensuu, influenced by Talking Heads, Xtc and Joy Division, he founded Hassisen Kone with some friends – Reijo Heiskanen on guitar and brothers Harri and Jussi Kinnunen on drums and bass. The name, taken from a local sausage-slicer manufacturer, was an ironic and deliberately anti-bourgeois choice that foreshadowed the band's irreverent streak.

Arriviamo Finlandia!

In March 1980, Hassisen Kone won the Finnish Rock Championship in the new wave category, and a few months later released their debut Täältä tullaan Venäjä! ("Here We Come, Russia!"), a manifesto for the new generation. The title, mocking and provocative, announced an album that alternated jeers and invective, blending a post-punk streak into short tracks – two or three minutes long – built on direct riffs and a typically Finnish melodic forcefulness.

Production was entrusted to Pantse Syrjä, guitarist of Eppu Normaali – pioneers of Finnish punk who in subsequent years would dominate the charts with a rock sound that was both auteur-driven and radio-friendly – and he managed to capture the band's energy with surprising clarity. Among the standout tracks is "Rappiolla", a ferocious satire of bourgeois and religious moralism that sparked fierce controversy:

You watch from your armchair in front of the TV
la mia voce di merda
e sei troppo pigro persino per cambiare canale,
urli a tua moglie: 'Portami una birra!'.
Se la decadenza è questo – amare,
cogliere l’attimo, non voler uccidere –
è bello stare in decadenza,
essere solo uno zero assoluto

The Finnish word rappiolla means "in decay" or "in ruin". Alanko flips it into a liberating key: decay as a rejection of norms and consumerism, a paradox that echoes what CCCP would later sum up in "Io sto bene". The rawness of the language – including a "shitty voice" – outraged the establishment: the Christian association Suomen Kristillinen Liitto called for its censorship, while journalist Anneli Tempakka of Yleisradio denounced the lyrics' "vulgarity". The band responded with sarcasm, going so far as to dedicate an ironic Christmas carol to the reporter. Paradoxically, the controversy sent the song's popularity soaring. "Täältä tullaan Venäjä!" shook the national scene: it immediately topped the charts, was certified platinum in 1997 with over 60,000 copies sold, and brought Alanko's unbridled stage theatrics to the fore. A debut that, with just thirty-five minutes of music, redefined the sound of Finnish rock, uniting punk swagger with literate songwriting.

Ugly melodies, uncomfortable truths

After the triumph of Täältä tullaan Venäjä!, Hassisen Kone found themselves thrust into an uncomfortable role: wherever they went, audiences obsessively demanded “Rappiolla”, to the point that the band stopped playing it altogether, worn out by the relentless calls for encores. It was a feverish period, marked by a double movement: on one side, an explosion of popularity; on the other, a heated debate over the content of the songs, which many deemed disrespectful toward the establishment. Alanko replied with his usual irony: “If something is terribly ugly, why should it be told in a nice way?”.

It was in this climate that Rumat sävelet (literally “Ugly Melodies”) was born, released in 1981. On the debut, Alanko had leaned on irony and rhythm; here the writing turns darker, more introspective and complex. The title itself – “ugly melodies” – reveals the intent to confront life's contradictions without filters or embellishments.

The album was received as “more serious and mature” than its predecessor. The lyrics surface existential anxieties, religious disillusionment, and reflections on society and on the musician's role. Rumat sävelet keeps its punk and new wave roots intact, but evolves toward darker, more theatrical tones, tinged with gothic shadows. Alanko adds keyboards and cello to the guitars and voice, giving the sound an unprecedented depth; at its core remains the band's rock power, now cast in a dramatic key. Despite the shift in tone, the group's gift for catchy melodies stays intact. Standout touches include carefully crafted arrangements, like Safka Pekkonen's languid piano on “Pelkurit” or the discreet marimba in the background, but the focal point remains Alanko's raspy vocals, more central than ever.

The opener, “Oikeus on voittanut taas” (“Justice Has Won Again”), stages a caricature of a court bulletin: the triumphant chorus clashes with the coldness of the imagery – “La giustizia è, la giustizia ha vinto di nuovo. Occhio per occhio e la pace è sulla terra” – and the band builds an obsessive march, with relentless drums, a pulsing bassline and sharp riffs that evoke a faceless justice. In “Führerin puolesta” (“On Behalf of the Führer”) the satire turns grotesque and blasphemous: “We stand on the Führer's side, but who is that Führer? Ha concepito dal grembo sacro. Il cui figlio è invincibile”, the protagonist declaims as if at a political rally, while the band builds a lopsided punk, full of deliberately caricatured stumbles, recalling Berlin post-punk and its Dadaist drifts.

“Jurot nuorisojulkkikset” (“Prickly Youth Celebrities”) is a bitter, self-mocking track: Alanko reflects on the fate of youth icons, idolized and immediately swallowed up by the State. The music moves slowly, trapped in a nervous groove that amplifies the sense of capture and assimilation. With “Jeesus tulee” (“Jesus Is Coming”), the attack shifts to religious ecstasy turned into corporate advertising: “Padre celeste e figlio S.p.A. Oggi l'amore si vende a poco prezzo”, Alanko sings like a deranged televangelist. The music is built around a repeated guitar riff and a tight bass groove, propelled by fast drumming, composing a liturgical parody that is at once amusing and unsettling.

The tone shifts radically with “Tällä tiellä” (“On This Road”), the album's most intimate and melancholy track: a slow, bare ballad recounting a missed encounter between two strangers – “Sera, il tavolo è familiare. Volti strani aprono la bocca/ Il vuoto ci circonda e il dolore/ E nessuno osa raccogliere le proprie ossa”. It's a new kind of vulnerability, one that anticipates certain intimate moods of Finnish singer-songwriter music in the Nineties. “Pelkurit” (“The Cowards”) returns to the anxious register: bass and drums hammer away obsessively, while the repetition of the lines (“Ho troppa paura di te, hai troppa paura di me, abbiamo paura del mondo”) creates a claustrophobic effect. Alanko's performance, furious and desperate, turns mutual fear into a sentence of isolation.

Rumat sävelet marks a sharp turning point: no more ironic punk antics, but dark, reflective rock. The magazine Soundi called it “ferocious”, a word that neatly sums up the record's atmosphere. The album reached number four on the charts, was certified gold in 2005 (over 50,000 copies sold), received four stars from Soundi, and was crowned “national album of the year (popular music)” by Yleisradio for 1981. In 2005 the same magazine placed it fifth among the greatest Finnish pop albums of all time. All of this cements “Rumat sävelet” as a classic and confirms Hassisen Kone as the most original band of their generation, paving the way for the experimentation of the following Harsoinen teräs.

Peak and dissolution

In 1981 Hassisen Kone took part in the Tuuliajolla tour, a traveling rock happening on Lake Saimaa: young bands – including Eppu Normaali and Juice Leskinen Slam – performed aboard a ship, moving from port to port between crowds and calm waters. Paradoxically, all three bands were reluctant to play last, often worn out by excessive drinking. The setting was captured in the Kaurismäki brothers' documentary “Saimaa-ilmiö” (1981), which did not hide the tour's other side: excess, late-night improvisations, and what the narrator called an “infernal nocturnal philosophy”. Toward the end of that same year the band expanded its lineup: Safka Pekkonen (keyboards), Antti Seppo (sax) and Hannu Porkka (xylophone and percussion) joined permanently. In the winter of 1981–82 guitarist Reijo Heiskanen left the group, replaced by the young Jukka Orma. The expanded line-up brought a clear shift: orchestral colors, more ambitious writing, more complex rhythms. The change wasn't only timbral: the group pursued interlocking parts and polyrhythms, a less rigid, more fluid phrasing, building a dense, offbeat sonic world. Rehearsals for the third album took place in an isolated villa: long nighttime jams, discipline and creative trance, with sax and keyboards cutting through the silence of the woods.

In March 1982 Harsoinen teräs (“Steel Gauze”) marked the most ambitious and sophisticated outcome of Hassisen Kone's creative journey. With this album – their third and last – the group definitively abandoned the ironic punk of their early work, giving life to a record of romantically-tinged “psychedelic new wave”, in which Finnish post-punk energy merges with prog digressions, touches of reggae and ska, and elaborate yet cohesive arrangements. The album quickly climbed to the top of the Finnish charts and went gold with nearly 50,000 copies sold. An English-language promotional version, “High Tension Wire”, was also made, but it failed to capture the poetic spirit of the original and fell far short of the domestic success.
Every track adds a piece to a dense, at times mystical mosaic, where lyrical introspection and social critique remain in balance.

The title track, placed at the opening, sets the album's peculiar atmosphere: visionary yet controlled, bodily and abstract at once. The track rests on the tremolo of a xylophone and an electric piano riff that, intertwining with an articulated bassline and a drum pattern built entirely on the toms, generates a sort of mutant tango in noir tones. Alanko's voice moves as if in a trance, delivering lines that fuse flesh and matter, seduction and violence: “La plastica mangia le ciambelle e il ferro canta di nuovo puoi goderti la giornata con il cemento” and again “Morbida e calda, bella e lucente ghigliottina”.
“Kupla kimaltaa” (“The Bubble Glitters”) alternates anxious rhythms with more ironic choral moments, winking at ska with off-beat guitars, blaring sax and abrupt tempo changes. The protagonist, who “unscrews his heart” in search of an artificial paradise, embodies the quiet alienation of a world without guilt or passion.

“Levottomat jalat” (“Restless Feet”), the album's hit, opens with a reggae groove led by the Farfisa organ, while the chorus is a post-punk charge with funk undertones. The sax enters unexpectedly, raising the track's energy: the mood is both euphoric and neurotic, mirrored in Alanko's vocal performance, which alternates rapid, sharp phrasing with brief gasps for breath, conveying a sense of youthful urgency. The chorus, catchy and repetitive just enough, translates the restlessness of the lyrics into rhythm: a body that can't stop moving, driven by an aimless frenzy.

Another key track, “Totuus” (“The Truth”) slows the pulse and immerses the listener in a contemplative mood. The drums stay in reggae territory but at a more measured pace, the xylophone weaves incessantly, and the arrangement introduces dub echoes, with reverbs and suspensions that stretch out the sonic space – an unprecedented choice for Finnish rock of the time. Alanko's voice emerges like an oracular presence: “La verità è conquistata, distorta e spezzata. It is not a hungry mouth devouring justice, but one demanding equality”.

At two and a half minutes, “Eksyneet lampaat” is a terse post-punk burst built on slapped bass, percussive layers and unexpected interplay between electric and acoustic piano. Even more aggressive is “Julkinen eläin” (“Public Animal”), driven by slashing sax, psychedelic textures of electric organ and xylophone, and a chorus delivered like an advertising slogan. The lyrics depict a society that turns nature into spectacle, amid vegetables on display and creatures on exhibition.

“Kuollut eläköön” (“Long live the dead!”) unfolds as a mini-suite in several acts. The slow introduction – “He was a great man, now he lies there. The king is dead” – conjures a sepulchral epic with stentorian piano chords, before going on to describe a “mourning army with funeral veils” accompanying a faltering sovereign, a metaphor for power crumbling. After the rhythm section kicks in, the structure splinters into funk jolts akin to the contemporary Talking Heads, and sax-dominated jazz-rock detours, as if to depict the chaos that follows the king's fall. The tension culminates in a choral refrain – “The king is dead, long live the king! So the world receives even more from him” – which sounds like a paradoxical proclamation, somewhere between ritual and satire. The track closes on more restrained tones, looping back to the introduction. Jussi Kinnunen called it “a crazy piece with an absurd number of sections – insane prog and endless virtuoso flourishes!”, and the description fits perfectly: “Kuollut eläköön” is the technical and dramaturgical peak of the album, a secular ceremony on the end of power and, at the same time, a show of strength from Hassisen Kone.
After such a climax, the album swerves abruptly into the lightness of “Olen toki, vain sen tiedän” (“Of course, that's all I know”), a more straightforward pop-funk number that's nonetheless rich in nuance: bursts of percussion, interweaving keyboards and arpeggiated guitars, leading up to the noisiest sax solo on the record.

The closing track is “Pelko” (“Fear”), a monumental piece that embodies a full synthesis of Hassisen Kone's poetics. The structure is split in two: the grave, solemn introduction – dominated by organ, deep bass and restrained vocals – conjures an almost liturgical atmosphere. Then the song detonates into a syncopated, dub-reggae-flavoured groove, over which Alanko obsessively repeats “pelko, pelko…”, turning anxiety into a mantra. The track explodes and recedes, fading out into a melancholy whistle that leaves the listener suspended. “Pelko” is a masterful epilogue, in which fear is not merely evoked but passed through all the way to stillness.

Harsoinen teräs marks the culmination of an extremely rapid yet coherent evolution: in three years, Hassisen Kone moved from youthful sarcasm to a learned, intellectual idea of rock. In August 1982, Alanko sensed the group had already said everything it had to say, and made a surprising decision: to disband right at the peak of their popularity. It wasn't a failure, but a choice of renewal: “I didn't want to fossilize. I needed to destroy everything in order to create something new,” he later said.
That radical farewell surrounds the album with an almost sacred aura. Harsoinen teräs remains a cornerstone of Finnish music: its influence can be felt in the years that followed, in that interplay of rhythmic rigour, linguistic exploration and emotional tension that many bands of the Finnish alternative scene would make their own. Hassisen Kone remain a singular case: a band that burned through its stages at astonishing speed, leaving behind three wildly different yet all essential albums. Their importance goes beyond sales or trends: they redefined what the Finnish language could be within rock, proving it could be cutting, poetic, even mystical.

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Sielun Veljet: not a band, but a cult

In 1982 Alanko founded a short-lived band called Iskelmätaivas, which reinterpreted old Finnish schlager¹ songs in a rock vein. Alongside him were Jukka Orma, Alf Forsman, Sakari Kuosmanen, Pedro Hietanen and Karri Koivukoski. The group had a very brief existence, playing just two shows at the Vanha Ylioppilastalo (the “old student house”) that same year. One of these, on 17 August, was recorded by Yleisradio and partly broadcast on radio and television.
But the real project was something else. Alanko envisioned a new band built on an idea of collectivity, a leaderless “tribe” in which all members held equal standing.

The intent was to give rise to a form of “anti-music” or “art of insult”, capable of escaping assimilation by the mainstream audience. “The idea of a new group playing rougher, more rhythmic music had been fermenting in the air for some time,” he would later recall. The goal was to oppose the polished melodies of the mainstream: so, with Orma, he began shaping a project that abandoned irony and pop leanings to embrace a more primitive aesthetic, with raw rhythms, cryptic lyrics, distorted sounds and a language dominated by urgency. Already in 1982 the two worked on embryonic demos that anticipated the approach of the future Sielun Veljet (Brothers of the Soul).

The definitive line-up emerged directly from Iskelmätaivas, with Alanko (vocals, guitar), Orma (guitar), Forsman (drums) and Jouko Hohko (bass). An older bassist had originally been considered, but Hohko was chosen instead, bringing, according to Alanko, “the final fire, the groove and the smell of sex” the band needed.

Another key figure was Jouni Mömmö, who contributed his “strange sounds” on synthesizer to the debut album and the early shows. The band wanted to record their first record live, convinced that “the lighting work of the band's light designer, Viholainen, wouldn't come across in a studio recording” and that the interplay between lights and atmosphere was irreplaceable. This live approach, combined with Mömmö's electronic touches, shaped an initial sound marked by noisy rock and no wave influences.

From the outset, Alanko made clear that Sielun Veljet were not a continuation of Hassisen Kone, but their radical negation. No melodic compromise, no chasing hits: the intent wasn't to please, but to destabilize. The early shows took the form of therapy sessions: long improvisations, deafening volumes, screamed vocals, sudden explosions alternating with hypnotic passages. Alanko himself doubted such chaos could work on record: what mattered was the present tense of the live show, a collective ritual in which music became catharsis. This antagonistic attitude was also reflected in their visual identity. No constructed look, no political slogans: just sweat, contorted faces and instruments pushed to the limit. No trend to follow – Sielun Veljet simply wanted to play the music they loved. Their sound was often compared to European post-punk, but with distinctive traits: hammering guitars, pulsing bass, tribal drums and lyrics more declaimed than sung, steeped in a visceral, theatrical and at times lysergic atmosphere.

On stage they delivered multisensory experiences: bare-bones staging, psychedelic lights and bodies in constant motion drew the audience into a collective rite. The aim wasn't entertainment, but the release of an energy somewhere between dance and trance. Famous was the 1982 concert in Nivala, which lasted over four and a half hours, stopped only when staff dragged Alanko off the stage. The intense, provocative stage presence often left audiences baffled: many walked out after a few minutes, put off by deliberately disturbing elements – spitting into microphones, jumping on bar tables and grotesque lyrics. It was a kind of natural selection, meant to gather only those ready to engage with that uncompromising art. That's how their cult following was born, small but devoted.

Fury on tape: when chaos takes shape

The first album, titled Sielun veljet, was released in May 1983 and was recorded live during a concert at the Vanha club in Helsinki that March. The sound is violent and convulsive: overdriven guitars, heavy bass and hammering drums shape raw, direct textures geared toward immediate impact. In the tracks – often long jams over which Alanko layers guttural vocalizations – abrasive sax and electronic disturbances intertwine, heightening a nocturnal, hallucinated mood.

The lyrics, dense with surreal imagery and sharp allusions, range from the nihilism of “Yö erottaa pojasta miehen” (“In the night the boy becomes a man”) to the regional references of “Karjalan kunnailla”, evoking Karelia, to historical figures such as “Emil Zatopek”. There's also room for political protest songs (“Politiikkaa”) and social commentary.
This blend of existentialism and punk rage makes the album a disorienting, visceral experience: there are no conventional melodies, only a primal emotional flow, where reality and nightmare blur together.

The EP Lapset” (1983) – Children – was released a few months later and gathered six more tracks. Here too a tense, compact imprint prevails: short, frenetic songs, driven by obsessive rhythms and jittery guitars. Despite its brevity, “Lapset” offers no respite: the tones remain dark and sharp, with sudden bursts of feedback and dreamlike openings in “Tuuli” or “Järviä, järviä”. The lyrics play on the contrast between the innocence suggested by the title and the violence of the music: social and political themes emerge (the title track “Lapset” reflects on the contemporary human condition through a child's gaze), alongside poetic fragments steeped in natural metaphors (“Elintaso” alludes to material well-being) and cultural rebellion (“Viimeinen mohikaani”, a symbol of those who survive the erasure of identity). Here too the sound remains spectral: booming bass, obsessive drums, skeletal guitars. Sudden brief pauses interrupt the frenzy, making the listening experience physical and hypnotic.

Upon release, critics and audiences alike were thrown off balance. The underground press struggled to place such an aggressive style: some reviewers praised its experimental courage, recognizing in Sielun Veljet an evolution of punk's original spirit, while others reacted with bafflement in the face of that uncompromising roar. Even Hassisen Kone's fans were split: some embraced the shift, others rejected it. Commercially, the results were modest: the album stalled at number ten, spending just two months on the charts, and the EP went almost unnoticed, in stark contrast to the previous band's successes. Over time, however, critics and new listeners came to recognize in Sielun veljet and Lapset the first flashes of genius from a band destined for cult status. Ultimately, two essential documents that push Finnish rock to its extremes, shaping the scene for decades to come.

One episode captures the spirit of that period well: during the tour for "Sielun veljet", Jukka Orma injured himself cutting bread, slicing through some tendons. In true punk spirit, he refused to cancel the dates and carried on despite the pain. The recording of the final show suffered for it, but the band never stopped bringing an unshakeable fury to the stage.

1984 was a year of transformation: primordial chaos was channeled into more fully-formed structures, while still retaining a ritualistic, liberating nature. Out of this came Hei soturit (1984), the band's first studio album, blending post-punk with tribalism. Tracks like "Satama" and "Tää on tää" show a new attention to dynamics, to the balance between physical tension and song form: guitars less abrasive but more psychedelic, a rhythm section exploring more intricate grooves. Worth noting is "Rauhallista", a psychedelic experiment with doom and avant-garde tones: a slow, pulsing soundscape that creates a suspended atmosphere, in sharp contrast with the frenzy of the past. The lyrics repeat the word "rauhallista" ("it's so calm") like a mantra, but the calm it evokes sounds menacing, dragging the listener into an uneasy stillness.

This period marked the band's maturation: Hei soturit represents a bridge between their beginnings and the visionary architecture of the following record. The form becomes more solid, the sound more controlled, but the spirit remains feverish and provocative. Their live shows, as overwhelming as ever, take on an almost cinematic tension. All of this lays the groundwork for L'amourha, the album that synthesizes and surpasses everything explored up to that point.

Love/Murder: the total manifesto

In 1985 Sielun Veljet reached the peak of their artistic arc with L'amourha, fusing the ritual rage of their early years, the raw psychedelia of "Hei soturit", and the punk theatricality of their live performances. The title, a fake French coinage blending "l'amour" (love) with "murha" (murder), condenses the disturbing vision running through the record: love not as refuge, but as obsession, loss, anguish. The sound is more controlled than ever: Orma's guitars do more than scratch, they carve out soundscapes; the rhythm section pulses with geometric power; Alanko's voice is now screamed, now whispered, a shamanic guide through a journey touching hysteria, desire and melancholy.

"Peltirumpu" opens with hammering motorik riffs and tribal drumming – a hammer-blow single that grabs you by the throat and won't let go. Riding the groove, the lyrics stage a dark fairy tale: a tin drum forgotten in a closet witnesses an extreme act – a child setting the curtains on fire "to see the sun" – and simply stays there. The chorus drives home the idea of a gilded cage that can only be escaped through destruction, with the object-narrator embodying isolation and frustration. Melodically the refrain is irresistible, and in its momentum it faintly echoes the vocal line of Nada's "Che freddo fa" – a surprising short-circuit between Italian pop and Finnish punk obsessions that amplifies the track's trance-like effect.

Next comes "L'amour", opening with a metallic-toned guitar tracing a circular pattern, soon overtaken by a hammering rhythm section. The feel leans closer to art-punk than conventional rock. The track thrives on dynamic accumulation: each verse adds an element – backing vocals, reverb, percussive guitars – building to a final climax where Ismo Alanko's voice turns almost shamanic.

"Tiskirätti" ("kitchen rag") is among the album's most abrasive tracks and showcases the band's more "physical" side, with a hybrid of punk rock and dissonant funk not far from early Gang of Four or the contemporaneous Minutemen. The lyrics satirize domestic conformity and relationships reduced to routine: the "kitchen rag" becomes a metaphor for those who let themselves be used and worn down without ever pushing back, a symbol of everyday passivity. Dirty, ironic, deliberately unpleasant, but liberating precisely because of that. "Ikävä" builds a hypnotic atmosphere, with bass and guitars chasing each other in a spiral. The tempo is medium-slow, but constantly tense. "Talvi" is the record's poetic heart: a glittering, nocturnal winter landscape, among "ponds full of diamonds" and "forests of purest silver". The chorus becomes a mantra: "Winter and ice, luminescent darkness, winter and ice, stinging beauty". A hypnotic lyric in which cold and beauty feel tangible, where the frost "flows inside the wanderer" until it merges with blood. The music follows suit with muffled guitars, liquid bass and sudden bursts, painting a fresco that captures the Nordic imagination.

The cover, "Toiset on luotuja kulkemaan" ("Some are born to wander"), darkly reworks "Wand'rin' Star", a song written by Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe for the western musical "Paint Your Wagon" (1951), made famous by Lee Marvin's film performance (1969). Sielun Veljet turn it from a western ballad into a spectral march: the drums mark out heavy beats like footsteps in the desert, the bass booms and the guitars build from reverberating arpeggios into blankets of distortion. Alanko sings in a baritone tone, ironic and theatrical, yet steeped in melancholy, while the low backing vocals conjure a host of cowboy ghosts. The echo on the voice and the warped slide guitar amplify the apocalyptic-western atmosphere.

"Kanoottilaulu" ("The Canoe Song") is drawn from a Finnish folk song ("Kanootin kapean vesille lasken") and turns a simple folk melody into a hypnotic ritual. The band builds the track on a driving rhythm of percussion and repetitive chanting, in an atmosphere of collective trance. The choral chant, with its famous nonsense refrain "Hayaayahaa…", drives the track and recalls ancient ceremonial songs. The effect is that of a dance around a fire, suspended between folklore and post-punk. Left off the vinyl but included on the cassette and CD editions, the song has become one of Sielun Veljet's most iconic.

"On mulla unelma" is a brutal, iconoclastic parody of patriotic spirit, an inverted anthem that turns national rhetoric into pure provocation. A rebellious rock march, it's built on an almost military drumbeat – though the hits are dirty and jittery – and on round, distorted guitars carrying an anthemic riff, made to be screamed along to in chorus. Alanko sings switching between the tones of a political agitator and mocking sarcasm, while the band builds a constant tension that explodes in the chorus: "I have a dream: a free world/ without borders". That utopian dream, redolent of Lennon, turns into a satirical nightmare, amid obscene invective and sacrilegious imagery: "I wipe my ass with the blue cross flag/ I feed LSD to the lion of Finland", or again "I tear the hands off the star-spangled flag/ I steal the hammer and sickle". Western and Soviet symbols alike are defiled without distinction. Sielun Veljet's imaginary anthem thus becomes a savage X-ray of national hypocrisy, a macabre dance over patriotic myths. Its provocative broadcast on the TV show "Härmärock" on Independence Day 1985 was immediately followed by censorship from Yle, which accused the band of blasphemy against national symbols. But the effect was the opposite: the song became a manifesto of dissent and cemented Sielun Veljet's status as an anti-establishment band. "On mulla unelma" isn't a dream to be fulfilled, but one to be exposed.

The album's third cover, and probably its most unexpected, "Josef, Josef" started life as a 1930s swing tune (written by Sholom Secunda, Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, made famous by the Andrews Sisters) and here becomes a klezmer-punk frenzy. Sielun Veljet turn it into an unbridled 2/4 dash, almost polka-paced: the bass hammers away while the guitars alternate off-beat chords with zigzagging phrases that mimic electrified gypsy violins. "Satujen julma taikayö" ("The Cruel Magic Night of Fairy Tales") is a dramatic rock ballad, built on a crescendo of minor-key arpeggiated guitars and solemn drumming. The lyrics blend fairy tale and reality: "The pale light over the landscape as the bad policemen hunt" opens a scene of violence and magic, while love proves impossible – "I would find shelter only in your lap, but love keeps me from touching you". The final image, "We have time every Christmas to weep at the grave", seals the mood of mourning and awareness. The penultimate track, "Rakkaus raatelee" ("Love Tears Apart") is a dark, cathartic rock march. It opens with a heavy descending riff, followed by bass and drums moving in lockstep through a martial 4/4.

A bare, touching epilogue, "Laulu" ("Song") closes the album almost a cappella: Alanko's voice front and center, a bass-drum beat as slow as a heartbeat, just a few backing vocals here and there. The melody unfolds like a lament, swelling and receding, until it fades into silence: after the storm of "Rakkaus raatelee", here catharsis lies entirely in the breathing and the spaces between notes. In the lyrics, natural imagery and civic conscience intertwine. A cinematic opening: "When flocks of cranes fly west, the gulls sing their last melody"; then unease: "The night is yellow and black". A political-existential gaze follows: "Who is deceiving us, now that the land is red and blue?", and the verdict: "The truth has been torn to shreds, every one of us knows it"; "The law has swept away the dust of truth: I am pure and I lie". Mourning becomes collective ritual: "The dead sleep in the cities beneath a sea of candles, and we have time every Christmas to weep at the grave." The emotional core lies in choosing to embrace sorrow as a final possession: "I wrap myself in my sadness: it's so beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. No one can take this away from me, I've paid for it all." And the farewell, wounded yet clear-eyed: "Even if I can't always manage to believe and to love, there's still so much beauty here to behold".

L'amourha also marked a turning point in terms of success: it reached number 2 on the Finnish charts and stayed in the top ten for a long stretch, selling 43,000 copies and returning Alanko to the top after the years in which Sielun Veljet had deliberately pursued an anti-commercial path. "Peltirumpu" became a cult track, covered by numerous artists, and the album is now regarded as one of the cornerstones of Finnish alternative rock.

Entire generations – from theatrical rock to industrial metal – recognize Sielun Veljet and this record as a touchstone. If the early albums had thrown down a challenge, L'amourha picked it up and won it: no longer just organized chaos, but a fully realized work.
Sealing that era is the episode of the theatrical staging of "Cappuccetto rosso" ("Little Red Riding Hood"), performed at the Tavastia Club in Helsinki to celebrate the gold record in July 1985. The plot, dreamed up at the summer cottage of Rane Raitsikka of the rock band Smack, saw the band members in absurd roles: Vinski as Little Red Riding Hood, Alanko as the grandmother, Hohko as the wolf, and Affe as the mother. The audience's reaction was fierce, met with boos and refund demands. Orma would later remember it as perhaps the "most rock'n'roll" thing they ever did, "because the audience didn't like it one bit" – proof of an artistic drive to provoke that never chases approval.

From fury to control

Released in 1986, Kuka teki huorin ("Who Committed Adultery") marked a new step in the evolution of Sielun Veljet. After the overwhelming L'amourha, which had balanced the fury of their early work with more structured songwriting, this album leaned further into the constructive side of their sound: more polished, carefully detailed, and making full use of the possibilities offered by the studio.

The result is a solid, measured effort that continues to explore funk-rock territory, alternating tracks influenced by black music with others that introduce almost "danceable" elements and rhythms close to ZZ Top's rock-blues. This greater attention to form comes at the cost of a slight loss of impact: the physical urgency of the previous records softens, giving way to a more contained, geometric, less incendiary sound – an evolutionary leap that nonetheless sacrifices some of the expressive vertigo of L'amourha.

The songs move along a broader, more layered axis: sinewy basslines, drums built on irregular meters, vocals shifting between narrative registers, all backed by carefully crafted harmonies and textures. Kuka teki huorin opens with the title track, built on a circular riff and a tight, almost obsessive vocal delivery: it's one of Sielun Veljet's best-known songs and immediately defines their direct, raw approach. "Säkenöivä voima" follows, driven by an urgent rhythm, dry guitars, and an arrangement that steadily builds in intensity.

On "Kaksin" the band slows down, making room for a subdued, bitter ballad, among the starkest and most moving in their catalogue. "Kansallispäivä" brings back speed and sarcasm, with a jagged pace and a guitar pushed to the front that drives toward a chaotic finale. "Mustamaalaan" lightens the mood with a more direct melody, while still retaining the rhythmic irregularity typical of the album. "Joku kuuntelee" and "Kristallilapsia" offer a suspended atmosphere made of stretched-out sounds and restrained vocals: in the first, a sense of alert is constant; in the second, an almost hypnotic pulse dominates. "Pyhä toimitus" rests on a slow, heavy tempo and plays on the contrast between voice and percussion, while "Raskas" closes the album with a handful of repeated chords and a final crescendo.

Kuka teki huorin thrives on underlying tensions, the product of a transitional phase. The balance between instinct and structure – so natural on L'amourha – here cracks slightly. There's no real fall-off, but the sound becomes more deliberate, less possessed. On release it was met with a mix of interest and puzzlement: Finnish critics spoke of a "reflective phase" or a "funk-noir turn," noting the partial retreat from the band's original fury. The public, however, responded with enthusiasm: the album came close to selling 29,000 copies and earned gold status.

International ambition (L'Amourder)

After the release of Kuka teki huorin, Sielun Veljet embarked on an ambitious project: adopting a new identity to break through the linguistic and cultural barriers that confined them to a Finnish audience. Thus was born L'Amourder, an alter ego devised for the international market, a name that played on the title of their most celebrated album, L'amourha, fusing "amour" with the sinister echo of "murder." The project wasn't about writing new songs, but reinterpreting the existing catalogue: already-released tracks were translated into English and re-recorded by the original lineup. The idea was simple: it wasn't the music but the language that stood in the way of export; translating the lyrics would be enough to make the message understood beyond national borders.

In 1986 came Ritual, an EP recorded the previous year, featuring English versions of already-released tracks that retained the band's abrasive, visceral charge. The following year brought the full album, "Shit-Hot." Compared to the EP, which still reflected the incendiary sound of the "L'amourha" era, this record marked a shift: the band had already moved elsewhere, closer to a hybrid of funk, nervy rock, and theatrical experimentation. Tracks like "National Day" and "Bitches Brew" reworked songs from Kuka teki huorin in English. Some lyrics kept their provocative edge, while in others the translation seemed to blunt the impact: too literal, or stripped of that Finnish neurosis, they risked being misunderstood. The paradox remains that live, Sielun Veljet work anywhere: their intensity, sharp edges, and ritualism cut across language barriers.

Despite the market difficulties, L'Amourder allowed them to undertake a European tour in 1986, culminating in an unusual event for a Western band: a tour of the USSR. At the height of the Cold War, they managed to make an impression even beyond the Iron Curtain, bringing their raw energy to a new and different audience. Particularly striking, according to witnesses, was their "explosive reinterpretation" of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' In The Wind," which took on unexpected and powerful resonances in that context. The success they found in the USSR demonstrated the communicative nature of their music: more physical than intellectual, it speaks directly to body and spirit, crossing boundaries that proved insurmountable for many other bands. L'Amourder remains an experiment full of insight and limitations, but it marks one of the most visionary moments in Sielun Veljet's story.

Suomi-Finland: homeland under the skin

After their international venture, in 1988 Sielun Veljet returned to singing in Finnish with Suomi-Finland. This, their sixth studio album, marked far more than a simple linguistic reversal: it represented a decisive aesthetic shift, partly abandoning post-punk tension in favor of more intimate, acoustic, and psychedelic territory.

The sound becomes more subdued: the guitars grow muffled, the percussion softens, while flutes and strings – played by Jorma Tapio – add depth and breadth. There are still flashes of complexity and prog-adjacent moves, but reworked through a minimalist sensibility. The lyrics reflect this change of pace too: the return to Finnish allows the band to tackle social and cultural themes of the country in the late Eighties head-on, particularly the growing influence of American culture. The songs alternate between irony, introspection, and surreal symbolism.

Suomi-Finland opens with a veil of acoustic guitar that introduces an intense, multifaceted record. The real entrance comes with "Lainsuojaton," a fast, biting track in which Sielun Veljet fuse post-punk energy with acoustic instruments wielded like blades: a nervous guitar riff drives a dry, insistent rhythm, while Tapio's horns screech in the background. Alanko sings of his status as an outsider, conveying a sense of inner struggle that pulses with every snare hit. Next comes the bitter, sarcastic title track, built on a mid-tempo pace and a circular melody that frame a grotesque portrait of the nation: Alanko voices his detachment from a country in free fall.

Tracks like “Huuhaa puuhaa” and “Totuus vai tequila” push toward a cabaret-tinged folk-rock, caught between nonsense and mockery, while “Rock’n’Roll” stands as a funeral march for the rock myth, dark and martial. The emotional core of the record, however, is “Ihminen”, a long existential ballad that opens on a melancholy arpeggio and flows into a psychedelic crescendo. Alanko questions what it means to be human, repeating phrases like “the stone is hard, I am not”, building to an emotional and lyrical apotheosis of rare intensity.
In the second half of the album, Sielun Veljet explore more danceable rhythms – “Alamäkeen”, almost a carnival hurtling downhill – and hypnotic hazes like “Sumuista hymyä”. But it's the closing track that leaves the deepest mark. “Volvot ulvoo kuun savuun” is a relentless gallop evoking a restless, animalistic humanity caught in a nocturnal race toward alienation. The visionary title becomes a sonic image: the Volvos howl, the moon is wrapped in smoke, the children of man go mad. It's a ferocious closer, suspended between tribalism and modernity, embodying the record's dual soul – one of the boldest peaks of Finnish rock in the 1980s.

Suomi-Finland reached the top of the national chart, but fell off it quickly, never matching the success of Kuka teki huorin or L’amourha. Over time it was reassessed as one of Sielun Veljet's expressive high points: not a transitional record, but one of their most cohesive and mature works, able to distill social unease, poetic vision and musical tension into a single statement.

A Quiet Farewell

Between 1988 and 1989, the band's members – Ismo Alanko and Jukka Orma in particular – began showing diverging interests. The new album Softwood Music Under Slow Pillars (1989) emerged from a process almost entirely detached from public view, with no singles or promotion, conceived more as a closing artistic statement than as a relaunch. The record carries forward the acoustic turn already set in motion with Suomi-Finland: an album sung entirely in English, recorded in a folk-rock mode with psychedelic touches, built around acoustic guitars, bouzouki, sitar and influences ranging from India to flamenco.

The result is a genuine stylistic “leap to the left”: from a noisy post-punk band to a mystical, multifaceted ensemble. “Softwood Music Under Slow Pillars” remains one of the group's most fascinating and personal albums, but its meditative structure and lack of commercial compromise made it a flop (it only reached number eight): the album was never distributed outside Finland and Sweden. On the record, dominated by hieratic atmospheres (the cover depicts a shamanic ritual), Alanko remains the main author, but Orma takes credit for key tracks such as “Woe! The Maiden Of My Heart” and “Life Is A Cobra”. With this, the Sielun Veljet project quickly entered its closing phase.

In 1989 came the compilation Myytävänä!, followed in 1991 by the triple box set Musta laatikko (“The Black Box”), the definitive document of the band's trajectory: the first CD contained songs from a studio album that was never finished; the second collected live recordings and covers of Tuomari Nurmio (one of the songwriters most admired by Finnish critics); the third was devoted to an entire concert performed under the alias Kullervo Kivi & Gehenna, a playful side project in which they reworked old Finnish schlager tunes and tangos in a grotesque key. Also in 1991 came the documentary “Veljet”, directed by Tahvo Hirvonen. Alanko found himself in a situation where Sielun Veljet had almost run their course, and he could finally embark on a solo career.

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Ismo Alanko: In Search of a New Form

With the Sielun Veljet chapter closed, Alanko was now free to explore a more open embrace of folk, more reflective songwriting, and an interest in the social changes sweeping contemporary Finland. All of these elements would feed into Kun Suomi putos puusta, his debut solo album. Jukka Orma too, co-writer and “counter-voice” of the band, having already shown a strong taste for ethnic sounds (flamenco, jazz, world music), moved on to other projects. After years of exhausting tours and constant shifts in direction – as one of the band's technicians recalled, “change was the meaning of life” for Veljet – the group's final steps felt like a natural conclusion. The official breakup came around 1991.

Falling From the Tree: Alanko's New Beginning

The Sielun Veljet story ended quietly, but not without leaving a legacy. Just as the band dissolved, Alanko opened a new chapter as a solo artist. 1990 brought Kun Suomi putos puusta, a debut that, while cutting ties with the Veljet's tribal energy, gathered up its underlying tensions and reshaped them into a more lyrical, melancholy form.
“Kun Suomi putos puusta” explores acoustic, minimal sounds, run through with retro ambient effects drawn from film music and moments where the orchestral arrangement takes on an almost brass-band quality, with lopsided fanfares turning melancholy into a visionary parade. On the lyrical front, Alanko shows sharp narrative writing: in the title track he condenses the transformation of contemporary Finnish society into a few short minutes – milk becoming “milk”, fresh catch replaced by frozen food, farms swapped for automated housing – rendering in poetic terms the shift from a rural world to the age of globalization. The artist himself has said he wrote it thinking of his parents' generation, journeying from the forests of deep Finland to urban modernity. There's no shortage of surreal episodes recalling the odd irony already glimpsed in Sielun Veljet – such as “Masentunut ameeba” (“Depressed Amoeba”), a sketch steeped in dazed melancholy – alternating with moments of intense singer-songwriter intimacy.
Critics welcomed the album with enthusiasm: the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat awarded it five stars out of five, praising its expressive tightness and overall coherence, capable of drawing the listener in and confirming Alanko's many-sided stature. Audiences rewarded the shift too: the record stayed at the top of the chart for two weeks and spent over five months in the top 30, selling more than 32,000 copies and earning gold certification.
In the years since, Kun Suomi putos puusta has been recognized as a landmark of Finnish rock, eventually earning a place in the local edition of 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

An Author in Search of Form

Alanko spent the 1990s constantly reinventing himself. In 1993 he released Jäätyneitä lauluja (“Frozen Songs”), a pivotal album that steered his sound toward an industrial-edged electronic music, built on drum loops, programming, and a bold use of the studio as an instrument in its own right.
It's the most experimental work of his career, designed to sound sharp and modern, with Riku Mattila's guitar reduced to a textural element and the involvement of musicians tied to the Finnish rap and dance scenes. The tracklist, short and tight, alternates obsessive electro-dance numbers like “Pornografiaa” and “Laboratorion lapset” with more lyrical moments like “Extaasiin”. “Kuolemalla on monet kasvot” takes on a slowed-down, dense tone, evoking the self's metamorphosis through unsettling images – “Death has many faces, not just the ones that seem to be looking only at you” – while “Demokratiaa (mutta vain tietyillä ehdoilla)” (“Democracy, But Only Under Certain Conditions”) comes on with a driving, martial rhythm, loaded with irony and social critique.
The cover, designed by Stefan Lindfors, with its icy imagery, reinforces the glacial aesthetic suggested by the title. On release, the record was seen as a sharp break from the debut: “The first real album that was entirely mine,” Alanko later said, “with its teeth sunk into the edge of a new era.” The numbers backed up its impact too: although it stalled at number 4, the album kept selling steadily over time and achieved gold certification, with singles like “Extaasiin” and “Kuolemalla on monet kasvot” destined to remain live staples.
After its release, Alanko toured the record across Finland with a new backing band, Tuonelan Lukio (the “Tuonela High School”), whose ranks included Izmo Heikkilä of the rap group Raptori – an odd-couple pairing of alternative rock and hip-hop electronics that still stands as a testament to the project's eclecticism.

In 1995 he released Taiteilijaelämää (“An Artist's Life”), which brought Alanko back toward more rock-oriented territory, without fully abandoning the writerly complexity honed during his earlier experiments. If Jäätyneitä lauluja was an album of ice and neon, Taiteilijaelämää opts for warmer, more carnal tones, with guitar arrangements recovering some of the physicality of the past and a deliberately theatrical use of the voice. The central theme is the condition of the artist: the title track stages an ironic, bittersweet self-portrait, caught between disillusionment and self-celebration, though the overall tone is less cutting, more settled into conventional song form. Tracks like “Don Quiote” take on an allegorical flavour, turning the literary figure into a combative alter ego, while “Taistelija” (“Fighter”), one of Alanko's best-known hits, amplifies this heroic image further. There are more intimate moments too, but the inner tension of his earlier work feels blunted here: what prevails is assured, sometimes predictable craftsmanship, showing more control than drive.
Even so, the album was well received: it reached number two on the chart, sold over 30,000 copies and earned a gold disc, cementing Alanko's central role in the Finnish scene of the 1990s – even though its author, at the height of his popularity, seemed to be going through a phase of consolidation rather than genuine inspiration.

In 1996 the Finnish artist shifted perspective once again with I-r-t-i (stylized as “Irti”, meaning “loose” or “cut off”). For this fourth album he opted for a frantic approach, giving himself and the band just two weeks to write and record everything from scratch. The result was a record built like a jam session, with improvised tracks and a looser structure than his previous work: a less polished project that many consider minor, but one that radiates a tangible creative urgency, swinging between raw rock, hints of funk and more rarefied passages, its instinctive energy proving more compelling than the more calculated Taiteilijaelämää.
Irti reached number 3 and stayed on the chart for thirteen weeks, confirming both the loyalty of his fans and Alanko's ability to surprise even with his most off-the-cuff projects.

In 1997 the artist felt the need to take stock of his career with Alangolla – Ismo Alangon lauluja, a four-CD retrospective box set spanning his entire output from the very beginning, including tracks drawn from side projects – one of the first box sets ever released by a Finnish artist.
Almost at the same time, toward the end of the decade, Alanko took part in a collaboration that would leave its mark: together with his brother Ilkka (singer of Neljä Ruusua) and fellow artists Kalle Ahola (Don Huonot) and A.W. Yrjänä (Cmx), he formed the supergroup Neljä Baritonia (“Four Baritones”). In 1997 the quartet released the tongue-in-cheek single “Pop-musiikkia”, written by Alanko: the track went platinum and spent eight weeks at number 1 on the singles chart, becoming a generational anthem.

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The Alanko Foundation: the freedom of reinvention

The success of “Pop-musiikkia” symbolically closed a chapter. After a decade of continuous metamorphosis – from icy electronics to theatrical confessions, from chaotic improvisations to pop forays – Alanko felt the need for a stable project, one able to integrate his divergent sides into a broader vision.

The end of the Nineties thus laid the groundwork for the birth of Ismo Alanko Säätiö, a collective workshop that turned that centrifugal tension into a coherent architecture, opening a new chapter in his story. In Finnish, säätiö means “foundation”: the intent was indeed to create a stable musical community, capable of welcoming the different sides he had explored in the past and fusing them into a shared language.

The flight of the pigeon

The new foundation's debut, Pulu (“pigeon”), came out in 1998 and marked the start of a season in which Alanko's rock opened up to dialogue with folk and chamber music. The band's sound, built on an acoustic and strongly timbral foundation, revolves around the flamboyant accordion of Kimmo Pohjonen – dubbed by the Finnish press “the Hendrix of the accordion” – flanked by vibraphone, cello, clarinet and tribal percussion.

Alanko himself alternates between guitar, piano and cello, leading an ensemble in which rock form merges with dense, theatrical songwriting. The album weaves together Finnish folk melodies and a contemporary sensibility, blending simplicity and rigor into an original sonic mix, where his singer-songwriter rock vein resurfaces, tinged with echoes of prog and the classics. Pulu thus inaugurates a new phase of balance: less instinctive but more constructed, able to turn into coherence the multiplicity that had defined Alanko in the preceding years.

Songs like “Rakkaus on ruma sana” (whose title – “love is an ugly word” – plays ironically on the clunky sound of rakkaus, the Finnish word for “love”) show Alanko's taste for mischievous symbolism, but also his ability to write one of the most powerful and memorable songs of his career: a blend of melancholy and interpretive intensity that has become a classic of his repertoire over time. Elsewhere there are meta-musical references to tradition, as in “Tuulipuvun tuolla puolen” (“Beyond the Tracksuit”), which evokes a classic Finnish tango. The album debuted straight at number one and stayed on the charts for twenty-four weeks, selling over 33,000 copies, becoming his biggest success outside of his two historic bands.

The live dimension further underscored the project's collective nature. On the tour that followed Pulu, Alanko took the band to perform not in the usual rock clubs but in Finnish theatres and concert halls, where audiences could listen seated and focused. This deliberate choice allowed for carefully staged shows presented as organic performances, in which the music became part of a broader experience. The setlist, alongside tracks from “Pulu”, included new “chamber” versions of pieces from Alanko's past repertoire – from Hassisen Kone to Sielun Veljet to his early solo work. The tour was documented on the 1999 live album Luonnossa (“In the Wild”). This double live album captures the magic of those concerts, between improvisations, intimate moments and tribal explosions, conveying the successful fusion of rock drive and chamber atmosphere that defines the first incarnation of the Säätiö.

Pop avant-garde inside the egg

If Pulu had propelled the Säätiö to the top of the charts, Sisäinen solarium was conceived in an even more ambitious and performative key, tied to the Labra theatre project. It was an avant-garde show devised with the aforementioned Stefan Lindfors, here acting as set designer, which combined a rock concert with experimental theatre inside an enormous structure shaped like a metal egg, with the band at the centre and the audience arranged all around. In this surreal setting – amid visionary lighting and an almost shamanic staging inspired by Finnish mythology – the Säätiö's music finds new life. Alanko said he loved that physical closeness with the audience – claustrophobic at first, then exhilarating – which allowed for direct communication with the crowd.

The music composed for Labra largely fed into Sisäinen solarium, released in 2000. While keeping the folk-chamber imprint – Kimmo Pohjonen's accordion and Teho Majamäki's ethnic percussion return, along with majestic choirs and harmonium flourishes – the album has an even broader, more ambitious scope. The intent, in Alanko's words, was to create music that was deeply Finnish yet at the same time universal, able to move even those who don't understand the lyrics. It's no coincidence that the album opens with an enveloping choral track (“Kirskainen hyvätyinen”) and even contains an ironic ghost track of a minute of silence (“Minuutin hiljaisuus”) to seal the experience.

Sisäinen solarium confirms the foundation's artistic courage, once again reaching the top of the charts and earning gold certification in Finland. However, despite Alanko's international ambitions, the Labra/Solarium project remained a phenomenon confined to the Finnish scene. On the domestic front, it's worth noting a first change in the line-up: after the album's release, longtime bassist Jussi Kinnunen left the band (he had been with Alanko since the Sielun Veljet days), replaced by Jarno Karjalainen – a change that foreshadowed the transformations to come.

In 2000, almost twenty years after the breakup of Hassisen Kone, the compilation Tarjolla tänään leapt straight to number one on the charts: a sign of a popular affection that had never faded, and of a collective memory that still regarded the band as one of the most vital in the history of Finnish rock.

The great orchestral chill

With 2002's Hallanvaara, Ismo Alanko Säätiö pushed its approach to its peak, creating the most imposing and multifaceted work of its history. For the occasion, the Finnish musician composed all the songs but entrusted their realization to a large team of collaborators, including two outside string ensembles conducted by Arttu Takalo and Ville Kangas, brought in to bolster the arrangements. The line-up underwent further changes: new bassist Jarno Karjalainen made his studio debut here, following Jussi Kinnunen's departure. Each track was handed to a different arranger, resulting in a varied and unpredictable orchestral palette (the instruments used even included a musical saw).

The title Hallanvaara ("Risk of Frost") should also be understood metaphorically: the lyrics evoke the creeping threat of an inner "frost" – burnout, exhaustion, depression – looming over everyday life.

The album moves across genres and moods with surprising ease, yet without losing cohesion. The opening track "Risteys" (literally "crossroads") comes across as a sober, melancholic ballad. "Suurenmoinen hautajaissaatto" is of an altogether different temperament, grafting grandiose choirs onto a relentless synthetic rhythm and pushing Alanko into falsetto on the choruses. The scenario shifts again with "Maailmanparantaja", a track that opens with hushed chamber tones before erupting into an explosive flamenco-tinged refrain: an unexpected but effective choice, in keeping with lyrics that sketch out the need to find meaning and love amid the chaos of the world.

The second half of the record is no less inventive. The single "Paratiisin puu", embellished by Pentti Lahti's flute flourishes, offers a soft, atmospheric pop-rock weave that will guarantee it a long life in Alanko's live setlists. The closing "Hallanvaara" goes in the opposite direction: a slow, icy ballad carried almost entirely by Ahti Marja-Aho's piano and the dark phrasing of Erja Joukamo-Ampuja's French horn. It's an austere epilogue that crystallizes in music the emotional "frost" at the heart of the record.

With this album Alanko arguably signs the most sophisticated chapter of his discography, managing to combine artistic ambition with pop accessibility without tipping into cerebralism. It wasn't unanimously embraced, however: many listeners found it "difficult" and deliberately arty, far removed from the folk-pop immediacy of its predecessors. It's no coincidence that it was the first Säätiö album not to top the charts, stalling at number 2. Heard today, Hallanvaara stands as the last peak in Alanko's arc, even though in later works the author would continue exploring new directions, often with good results.

Hallanvaara also marked the end of an era for the foundation. Already during the recording sessions, two pillars of the original sound – Kimmo Pohjonen, with his avant accordion, and multi-instrumentalist Teho Majamäki – had left the group to pursue other projects. Although Pohjonen appears as a guest on "Peilikuva", the band's core had by now changed: alongside Alanko (voice, piano, guitar, even whistling and cello when needed) were Samuli Laiho on acoustic guitar, Jarno Karjalainen on bass and double bass, and Marko Timonen on drums. The orchestral expansion of Hallanvaara thus seems almost to compensate for the absence of the old bandmates.

The release of Hallanvaara was accompanied by a new tour. To translate those lavish tracks into a live setting, Alanko chose to pair the Säätiö with Ville Kangas's string quartet, creating an evocative "double ensemble" on stage: on one side the rock band, on the other the classical quartet. The 2002 shows thus alternated tracks from Hallanvaara with chamber reworkings of songs from Alanko's back catalogue. After this orchestral phase, in the second half of 2002 the Säätiö temporarily returned to a more intimate format, performing in rock clubs and festivals with just the electric quintet. Part of this season was captured on the live album Elävää musiikkia (2004).

When the Foundation Disbands

The 2003–2004 period marked a phase of transition and further evolution for the foundation, which kept changing shape, and with it the musical direction. Violinist Ville Kangas stayed on for a while longer, now as a multi-instrumentalist – violin and keyboards – but without his quartet. Meanwhile, longtime guitarist Samuli Laiho left in 2003, replaced by Timo Kämäräinen. Alanko took the Säätiö into all sorts of crossover settings: in 2003 the group played at classical music festivals and poetry readings as well as wine fairs and major summer rock gatherings like Ruisrock. This eclecticism confirms the project's open-ended nature, forever balanced between high and popular culture.

The real shift came with the fourth studio album, Minä ja pojat ("Me and the Boys"), released in the summer of 2004. As the colloquial title suggests, Alanko rediscovers here the sheer pleasure of making music with the band, with a more direct, earthy approach. Minä ja pojat is striking for its immediate rock edge: electric guitars front and center – three of them, in fact, since producer Riku Mattila was recruited as a third guitarist during the sessions – driving rhythms, and an almost garage-rock energy.

There's no shortage of strong songs and powerful moments, but overall the album proves less innovative than its predecessors. Alanko himself spoke of an attempt to reconnect with the punk drive of his early days, citing contemporary heavier alternative rock models such as Queens Of The Stone Age or System Of A Down. The record still found favor with audiences, topping the charts and earning gold certification: a success that, despite hints of a certain creative fatigue, confirms the Säätiö's vitality.

That same year, 2004, at Helsinki's Kulttuuritalo, Alanko took part in the tribute concert for the late Gösta Sundqvist (1957–2003), the charismatic frontman of Leevi And The Leavings, authors of a melancholic, ironic brand of pop rock much loved in Finland. On stage, alongside his brother Ilkka and Cyde Hyttinen (a singer-songwriter from Joensuu and a historic figure of the Finnish rock scene), Ismo established himself as the true star of the evening. The three closed the show performing "Unelmia ja toimistohommia", "Teuvo, maanteiden kuningas" and "Pohjois-Karjala (Skandinavia Mix)".

The foundation's final chapter arrived with Ruuhkainen taivas in 2006. By now we're far from the acoustic parlours of Pulu: the album follows the path laid out by its predecessor, pairing the vigorous sound of a three-guitar rock band with Alanko's usual melodic sensibility. While offering tight, cohesive songs, the record merely consolidates a more traditional formula, with occasional echoes of Hassisen Kone and early solo Alanko. The title, which translates roughly as "crowded sky", seems to allude to a firmament thick with clashing sounds and emotions, but the overall impact remains that of a closing statement rather than a turning point. National critics, too, praised its maturity and cohesion, though without the enthusiasm reserved for Alanko's boldest records. Sales nonetheless remained strong, and the album reached number two on the charts.
In 2007 Alanko decided to officially disband the Säätiö, bringing to a close a creative season that had lasted nearly a decade.

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Ismo Alanko Teholla: The Sound of Subtraction

After the foundation disbanded, Alanko chose to start over in a radically different direction. No longer a large, theatrical collective, but a minimal duo: by his side he brought in Teho Majamäki, the multi-instrumentalist who had been a key figure in the Säätiö's early years, known for his ability to play the most varied instruments – vibraphone, marimba, tabla, harmonium and exotic objects collected on his travels. The idea was to strip away every ornament and return to the essence, paring the songs down to their core before dressing them again in ever-new timbres. Thus was born the Ismo Alanko Teholla project, whose very name ("with Teho") underlines the symbiotic nature of the collaboration.

The first album, Blanco Spirituals (2008), stands out for its spare yet ever-shifting approach: Ismo Alanko and Teho Majamäki build a complete acoustic sound-world using unusual instrumentation and writing finely attuned to balance. Despite the reduced lineup, the arrangements come across as full and structured, thanks to the clever use of overlapping layers, intricate percussive patterns and original timbral blends. The overall atmosphere hovers between secular spirituality and tribal pulse, with occasional nods to Finnish folk. Each track retains a strong musical identity, often playing on the contrast between melodic sweetness and rhythmic urgency.

In particular, “Kuohuissa kahden maailman” and “Rakkaus on ruma sana” – reworked and transformed compared to the version on “Pulu” – show the duo’s ability to merge Alanko’s past with a radically new present, one where melodic fragility meets unsettling rhythmic choices. The album was well received by critics and also proved a commercial surprise, debuting at number one on the charts: a sign of the affection Finnish audiences continued to hold for Alanko even in the face of a project of such apparent austerity.

The live dimension became the duo's true field of expression. Ismo Alanko Teholla concerts were conceived as rituals in which the songs changed from night to night, enriched by improvisation, instruments brought on stage from every corner of the world, theatrical touches and direct interaction with the audience. Despite being just the two of them, Alanko and Majamäki fill the space with a vast arsenal of instruments and a chemistry born of years of collaboration and shared musical curiosity. It's no coincidence that in 2009 the live recording “Lava” was released, in video format only, documenting this experience: a record that doesn't simply present the songs in live versions, but reinvents them.

The journey continues with Onnellisuus (2010), the duo's second and final studio album, marking a clear change of direction. The duo moves away from minimalism to embrace a denser, more layered and modern production. The songs explore a refined pop-rock sound, enriched by synthesizers, effects, electric guitars and more assertive drums.

Compared to Blanco Spirituals, the sound is brighter, fuller and more polished. The arrangements favor a controlled "wall of sound", where every space is filled with layers of sound. The ethnic and acoustic elements are folded into a more radio-friendly, accessible context. The balance between energy and reflection remains, but the tone is more outgoing and open. While staying true to its past, Onnellisuus reveals a more polished and ambitious side of the project. The album cements the duo's strength and earns positive reviews, reaching number four on the charts.

With Ismo Alanko Teholla, the author went through an almost ascetic phase of his career: after the baroque decade of Sielun Veljet's Säätiö, he chose the path of stripping down and intimate dialogue, finding in this numerical reduction a new form of expressive freedom.

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A Journey Without End

The 2010s open for Alanko with a renewed need to reassert his solo voice. This is a mature Alanko, well aware of his status as a historic figure in Finnish music, but far from inclined to settle. Restlessness comes roaring back: where once he set the pace, now he moves through a far more crowded field, forced to reckon with rapidly shifting languages, yet with the same old stubbornness. It's the image of an artist perhaps tired, but never tamed, still determined to question everything.
The comeback arrives with Maailmanlopun sushibaari (2013), an album that marks a return to the top of the charts, debuting at number 1, and presents a rock-oriented Alanko: electric guitars, solid rhythms, incisive vocal lines and lyrics steeped in irony and surrealism. The title – "The Sushi Bar at the End of the World" – evokes the album's atmosphere, suspended between disenchantment and visionary clarity, with imagery blending the everyday and the apocalyptic. Alanko focuses on the essence of songwriting, with solid songs able to combine immediacy and depth, crafting one of his best solo records. Tracks like "Vanha nuori", "Vuoden turhin laulu" and "Tukahdutettu tango" show an artist reclaiming the centrality of melody and storytelling. The album is well received by critics, who highlight its freshness and its ability to sound contemporary without chasing trends.

In 2015 comes Ismo Kullervo Alanko, a reflective album that combines new songs and reinterpretations in an essential, cohesive form. The sound remains rooted in rock, but turns more restrained and focused: clear arrangements, controlled rhythms and vocals placed front and center paint the picture of an artist reflecting on himself without seeking any revolutions. The album reaches number six on the charts.

Two years later, Yksin vanhalla (2017) marks a more intimate turn: recorded live at Helsinki's Old Student House, the record finds him alone on stage reinterpreting classics from his own catalogue in acoustic form, with voice and guitar as the only instruments. Entering the charts at number 2, it shows an artist willing to strip away every artifice in order to render the truth of his songs.

Between 2019 and 2021 Alanko opens a new symphonic chapter. Minä halusin olla niin kuin Beethoven (2021) – “I Wanted to Be Like Beethoven” – declares from its very title his aspiration to measure himself against the idea of classical stature. The album, again reaching number 2, showcases orchestral arrangements and lyrical openings, with results that are fascinating but not always incisive: the desire for grandeur occasionally veers into mannerism, and while critics greeted it with respect, audiences didn't find in it the emotional impact of his best work.

The same year he releases Kaiken maailman kehtolauluja (“Lullabies from All Over the World”) with the Oulu Symphony Orchestra: not a simple collection of lullabies, but a project combining new compositions and orchestral arrangements of songs from his back catalogue. It's an austere record of cultured contamination, deepening the dialogue between rock sensibility and orchestral writing.

In 2022 a new partnership takes shape with Kimmo Pohjonen. The duo debuts with Voice Of Northern Lowland, an experimental work that fuses voice, accordion, electronics and improvisation into a language straddling sonic performance and contemporary shamanism. Alanko turns his own voice into a timbral instrument, moving naturally between ambient, abstract folk and Nordic avant-garde.

His most recent path finds a summation in Me olemme ihme (2023), which debuts at number two. It's a record where rock elements coexist with orchestral moments, or in any case passages rich in coloring (thanks to wind instruments, electronics, careful arrangements), alongside lyrics that swing between introspection and awareness of the world.

Three years later comes Kevyt ja kohtuuton (2026), released on February 13 and recorded entirely live in the studio without the aid of a click track. Among the finest albums of his recent period, it stands as a manifesto of creative freedom: Alanko favors organic interaction between the musicians and recovers an expressive immediacy that recalls the most visceral spirit of Sielun Veljet. The eleven songs move through direct, physical territory, where the spontaneity of the performance becomes a structural element, in contrast with the digital perfection of contemporary production. The resulting energy reveals a surprisingly vital Alanko, able to reaffirm his central place on the Finnish scene even after decades of career. Backed by a national tour full of sold-out shows.

Alongside the records, recent years have been marked by major reunions. In 2011 Sielun Veljet briefly got back together to release the single "Nukkuva hirviö". Even more striking was the return of Hassisen Kone, celebrated in 2022 with a tour marking forty years since their debut: the Tampere show drew over 30,000 spectators, confirming a popular affection that never faded. These are moments that underscore the historical weight of his bands, which Alanko approaches without nostalgia, as opportunities to come to terms with his own past. Alongside these, there have been no shortage of special collaborations: from symphonic concerts with local orchestras to theatrical shows, all the way to unplugged tours.

The portrait that emerges is that of an artist incapable of standing still. If he once imposed new forms, today he's more often engaged in chasing after them, but always with the same tenacity. It's precisely this stubbornness that defines him: Alanko never becomes a "classic" in the comforting sense of the word, he never settles into his back catalogue, he never turns his concerts into rituals of nostalgia. Even when confronting the past – in reunion shows, anthologies, orchestral reworkings – he does so with active energy, redefining the meaning of his songs each time anew. Thus he morphs from pioneer into tireless explorer, from a voice of rupture into the critical conscience of Finnish rock. He remains an artist who treats time as something to be challenged: less a custodian of memory than a traveller who refuses to stop.

Looking at his entire career arc, the defining trait is clear: from the punk outburst of Hassisen Kone to the tribal fury of Sielun Veljet, from the collective visions of Säätiö to the asceticism of Teholla, right up to his latest solo albums and celebratory reunion shows, Ismo Alanko embodies the very idea of continuous transformation. Every decade has seen him shed his skin, often ahead of his time, sometimes playing catch-up, but always with the same urgency: never stop. And the fact that, after almost half a century of activity, he can still draw a broad and passionate crowd is perhaps the clearest proof that his music still speaks to the present – an endless journey, able to cut across generations.

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