Finland - Ostrobothnia, South Ostrobothnia & Central Finland

The next stop on our tour of Finland is the coastal town of Vaasa in the Ostrobothnia region.  Now Vaasa is a bilingual city with a third of the population speaking Swedish as their native language.  Hence some of the traditional music is more influenced by the Scandinavian neighbour.  

The folk band Gjallarhorn (named after a horn associated with the Norse God Heimdallr) is one such example.  Their style is influenced by New Age sounds, mostly acoustic, but accompanied by drums and bass and led by the lead vocals of Jenny Wilhelms singing in Swedish.  They were established in 1994, but sadly their website appears to be dormant right now and their music is not easy to obtain.  Here's a song from their last album to date the 2006 Rimfaxe.  The track is simply called Hymn:

Next up we're visiting the region of South Ostrobothnia.  All female folk quartet Enkel are from the town of Alavus (at least 2 of their members are).  They exude just loads of fun generally with 2 melodeons, a viola and the Finnish national instrument the Kantele, which is exemplified in this song Babes in the Water:

And here is the opening track to their 2018 album We Are Enkel called Lempi-Ihmisille (Girl Gang Quadrille):

Next we're heading to the region of Central Finland and we're stopping in the town of Jyväskylä, where bluegrass / metal band Steve 'n' Seagulls hail from.  They shot to fame when their popular and humorous videos started appearing on YouTube in 2015.  They do covers of hard rock and heavy metal classics and giving them the bluegrass treatment (or bluegrassifying them, which according to Tabetha Tozer of of Northern Ireland's Cup O'Joe is a word).  Here are a couple of songs from their 2015 debut album Farm Machine.  First up is Thunderstruck by AC/DC:

...and another AC/DC number You Shook Me All Night Long featuring the Finland women's national ice hockey team and a pony:

Last stop in Central Finland is the municipality of Korpilahti, where composer, jazz pianist and moog player (the moog is a form of early synthesizer) Kari Ikonen was born in 1973.  He has released numerous albums as a solo artist as well as part of the Kari Ikonen Trio and as a leader of his band Karikko.  Here is a track from an album with the latter called The Helsinki Suite from 2011.  The track is called Circular:

That's it for today, next we're heading for Tampere in the Pirkanmaa region.  Until then you can follow my virtual journey on my Tripline map.