2011

Songs / Tracks Listing

1. Twelve (studio) (5:06)
2. Four (studio) (9:05)
3. Montreaux (studio) (5:26)
4. Scandal (studio) (5:59)
5. Song (live) (7:05)
6. Montreaux (live) (5:33)
7. Four (live) (7:50)

Total Time 46:04

Line-up / Musicians

- Mikko Nurmi / bass
- Tatu Henttonen / drums, percussion
- Mikko Iivanainen / guitar

Kaarna connects in its music King Crimson, Kingston Wall and Marc Ribot influenced free improvisation, jazz and rock. The spirit is to create music, where psychedelic, jazz and rock influences couple with group improvisation of guitar, bass and drums.

“**** KAARNA is a promising Finnish psychedelic progressive / post rock band with Mikko Nurmi’s matchless talent for composition, and deep bass, Mikko Iivanainen’s fuzzy and dazzling guitar, Tatu’s heavily and rigidly strict drumming. This album “Spring” is their brilliant debut album and simultaneously well-completed one.”

“**** Kaarna’s debut EP was a big pleasant surprise for me! Unknown Finnish band plays music I needed some listening to catch in, and I believe every next spin will open me more nuances. Far nor very often situation nowadays.

Album’s opener, “Twelve”, is heavy-weight attack of distorted guitars, with some melodic tunes (even Eastern?) deeply under the skin. Psychedelic jamming, but not boring at all.

Second song, “Four”, is aerial down tempo guitar and loops based dreamy instrumental piece. With cool and melancholic melody line, coming slowly from somewhere and becoming electric guitar line on the front of the second half of the compositions. Some ambient feeling and Fripp comes to mind. And the whole song becomes a “quite storm” at its end.”

Kaarna biography
KAARNA was formed in June 2008 while waiting for another band's rehearsals to begin. Mikko NURMI and Tatu HENTTONEN jammed together for some 30 minutes before those other rehearsals started. Mikko played guitar then and Tatu drums and some keyboards. The two of them improvised three tunes in that half an hour minutes and thought that the results were so good, that they should continue to work on that stuff. For example the tune Song was improvised then, a tune that later become Kaarna's basic material.

After that Tatu and Mikko did some few rehearsals with Lasse HARTMAN as a second guitarist. From those days time went on before Mikko contacted his favourite guitarist Mikko IIVANAINEN to join the band in Winter 2009. This is when KAARNA was finally a real band doing live gigs and thinking about recording an album. The trio (Mikko IIVANAINEN on guitar, Mikko NURMI on bass and Tatu HENTTONEN on drums) did one studio session and two gigs in two days period. The result was KAARNA's debut album 'Spring' recorded in 3rd and 4th of May, 2009.

In those early days KAARNA did not use any predetermined harmony structures. Mikko (Nurmi) just wrote some short melodies or a couple of chords and all the rest was improvisation. Harmony, structure and almost everything was completely improvised. Most of the tunes were only some chords or a short melody as a theme (like Twelve with just two chords as a composition). There were some longer tunes as exceptions like Song, though Song was a result of improvisation.

After the album 'Spring' Juha-Pekka LINNA joined the band as a new guitarist. Improvisation is still an important aspect of KAARNA's music and new tunes are composed in a regular basis. Mikko (Nurmi) is quite a productive composer and for example in 2008 he composed some one hundred tunes that will all be recorded some day with some of his bands. Linna was a deeply welcomed guitarist and his band Veljeni Valas is one of Mikko's (Nurmi) favourite bands in Finland.

KAARNA's main influence was Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog album. After hearing that album (sometime in Summer 2008) Mikko NURMI wanted to do something similar to Ribot's tune called Midost. Twelve was inspired heavily by this Ribot's tune and this might be heard in the studio version of Twelve. Other influences are legendary Finnish progressive / psychedelic band Kingston Wall and King Crimson. There are also some hints of Robbie Krieger's (of The Doors) guitar style in Song's melody. B...KAARNA was formed in June 2008 while waiting for another band's rehearsals to begin. Mikko NURMI and Tatu HENTTONEN jammed together for some 30 minutes before those other rehearsals started. Mikko played guitar then and Tatu drums and some keyboards. The two of them improvised three tunes in that half an hour minutes and thought that the results were so good, that they should continue to work on that stuff. For example the tune Song was improvised then, a tune that later become Kaarna's basic material.

After that Tatu and Mikko did some few rehearsals with Lasse HARTMAN as a second guitarist. From those days time went on before Mikko contacted his favourite guitarist Mikko IIVANAINEN to join the band in Winter 2009. This is when KAARNA was finally a real band doing live gigs and thinking about recording an album. The trio (Mikko IIVANAINEN on guitar, Mikko NURMI on bass and Tatu HENTTONEN on drums) did one studio session and two gigs in two days period. The result was KAARNA's debut album 'Spring' recorded in 3rd and 4th of May, 2009.

In those early days KAARNA did not use any predetermined harmony structures. Mikko (Nurmi) just wrote some short melodies or a couple of chords and all the rest was improvisation. Harmony, structure and almost everything was completely improvised. Most of the tunes were only some chords or a short melody as a theme (like Twelve with just two chords as a composition). There were some longer tunes as exceptions like Song, though Song was a result of improvisation.

After the album 'Spring' Juha-Pekka LINNA joined the band as a new guitarist. Improvisation is still an important aspect of KAARNA's music and new tunes are composed in a regular basis. Mikko (Nurmi) is quite a productive composer and for example in 2008 he composed some one hundred tunes that will all be recorded some day with some of his bands. Linna was a deeply welcomed guitarist and his band Veljeni Valas is one of Mikko's (Nurmi) favourite bands in Finland.

KAARNA's main influence was Marc Ribot's Ceramic Dog album. After hearing that album (sometime in Summer 2008) Mikko NURMI wanted to do something similar to Ribot's tune called Midost. Twelve was inspired heavily by this Ribot's tune and this might be heard in the studio version of Twelve. Other influences are legendary Finnish progressive / psychedelic band Kingston Wall and King Crimson. There are also some hints of Robbie Krieger's (of The Doors) guitar style in Song's melody. Both Mikko NURMI and Tatu HENTTONEN have a long history of interest and love to psychedelic and progressive rock. All the musicians involved with KAARNA also are involved with jazz, which can be heard and seen in the band's interest to improvisation for example. Anyway, KAARNA has tried to do some personal and original music. Music that goes its own way and is deeply original.

: : : Mikko Nurmi, FINLAND : : :