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There's a new album from Jansky Noise (a.k.a. Andy MacGregor), called Born of Black Light (February 2025), now available at Bandcamp . Back in 1996, Jansky Noise helped to set up with Leyland James Kirby the V/Vm Test label and worked very closely on numerous projects on the label. V/Vm was known for its plunderphonic copyright-baiting releases, turning familiar pop tunes into some chaotic collages of noise frenzy. Jansky also collaborated with Speedranch (a.k.a. Paul Richard). As Speedranch^Jansky Noise they released for Planet Mu (a label run by Mike “µ-Ziq” Paradinas) the album Mi^grate (2003), also material for such imprints as Leaf, FatCat Records and Hot Air. Furthermore, there was some solo material from Jansky Noise for Vukzid and Digital Vomit, then the 2011 album Slow Order V2 for El Perro Rojo (“The base of the album evolves around an '80s synth classic”, claims Discogs). After that there was no new music in years. Had aliens perhaps abducted Mr. MacGr...

Yo-Talo, also known as Ylioppilastalo, at Kauppakatu 10, Tampere. Photography by Tiia Monto / Wikimedia Commons. Ylioppilastalo (also known as Yo-Talo ), street address Kauppakatu 10, is a building located in the Tammerkoski district of Tampere, Finland. Suomen Yhdyspankki (the Union Bank of Finland) commissioned Professor Gustaf Nyström (1856-1917), one of the last representatives of the Neo-Renaissance style in Finland, to design an office building for the bank. Nyström had studied in Vienna, where he adopted local nuances of the Art Nouveau style, which was called Jugendstil in Austria and Germany. The house was completed in 1901. The decorative and imaginative facade has features from both the Neo-Renaissance and early Viennese Art Nouveau. The building is now protected on architectural, cultural-historical and landscape grounds. After its original owner, the building was called Suomen Yhdyspankin talo, House of the Union Bank of Finland. There was an impressive bank hall...

Blues Section in 1967. From the left: Jim Pembroke, Hasse Walli, Ronnie Österberg, Eero Koivistoinen, Måns Groundstroem. Blues Section was a pioneering band in Finnish rock music who, during their brief career, managed to leave behind them a lasting legacy, not only with some memorable tunes of their own but also paving way for the future, when more bands and musicians, even a whole music scene, followed in their footsteps. The band was started in spring 1967 by guitarist Hasse Walli (1948-) and bassist Måns Groundstroem (1949-). Blues Section took their initial cues from John Mayall ’s Bluesbreakers and Jimi Hendrix whose May 1967 concert in Helsinki had astonished also local musicians. Blues Section found an inspired vocalist-songwriter from the British expat Jim Pembroke (1946 - 2021), formerly of The Pems. For Blues Section's first line-up, drums were played by Edward Vesala . He was replaced by Raimo "Raikka" Rautarinne , before the band finally settled t...

Aira Samulin (on the right) with a Futurist. In the late 1970s and early 80s, two Helsinki journalists, Jukka Lindfors and Kari Lempinen (a.k.a. Walter de Camp ) were editing the magazine Uusi Laulu ("New Chant"), which had, just in a couple of years of time, transformed from a somewhat serious leftist culture publication into a more ironic, "postmodern", even "hipster" journal, encompassing the latest fads and intellectual trends; including music, literature, visual arts, and clubs, also introducing the concept of "camp" culture to Finnish audiences, and so on. Comical, self-ironic transgressions in the very spirit of punk were the order of the day: In 1980 Uusi Laulu had arranged a tongue-in-cheek campaign to liberate keskiolut (popular middle-strength lager strictly available only at the state-owned liquor stores and licensed grocery stores), to be sold also at R-kioski convenience stores. In 1981 there had been an event with a rel...