O quinteto de Helsinki, Finlândia, Soft Power é um caso de freaknice aguda.
Jogando em seu caldeirão de excentricidades sonoras, o kraut alemão, o prog universal, o psicodelismo sessentista, os primórdios escandinavos jazzísticos, tudo em doses cavalares, resultando um desconcertante e hipnótico resultado de hipnose sonora.
Para explicitar tudo isso é simples, experimente a audição do mais recente trabalho "In A Brown Study" e tente permanecer lúcido e sóbrio com o Soft Power, se conseguir me avise.
Boa viagem.
***** Interview with Soft Power *****
All began in 2013. We had rehearsal space in Herttoniemi/Helsinki were there was group of different bands playing and we kind of getting together as a group of people who hasn’t got a active projects going on at the time. We just jam and played around there together and didn’t have any plans or try to pull out any one type of music style, we just played around bunch of different styles and got booked for the first gig. After that it’s been like that, every time we got booked we gather together all the ideas at the time and arranged the set list from the jams or songs that have come done already.
Q: Who are your influences?
Its really hard to describe influences cos we all like a bit different artist and music styles for different times. But we could say that some stuff psych stuff from late 60’s/early 70’s and 70’s Scandinavian prog/jazz stuff we dig a lot, also all the spiritual jazz stuff from Coltrane/Pharoah Sanders is great. Also some traditional Middle-Eastern music and some static beats from Africa is always inspire.
Q. Make a list of 5 albuns of all time…
5 albums of all time, its too difficult. We could give 5 recommendation:
Luciano Cilio - Dialoghi Del Present (originally released 1977/EMI)
Such a beautiful structure of music, avantgarde, experimental folk.
Trade, Gräs Och Stenare - Tack För Kaffet / So Long (2017/Gåshud/Subliminal Sounds)
New album! Really nice record, takes you somewhere where you forget about time. This band has such a amazing catalogue of albums.
Kuumba-Toudie Heath – Kawaida (1970/O’Be Records)
Been listening this lately, really nice vibe on it. Amazing stuff.
Gabor Szabo - Dreams (1968/Skye Records)
Really nice record from Hungarian guitarist. Heard it for the first time when our album co-producer and good friend Jaire Pätäri recommend the album.
Pärson Sound - Pärson Sound (tracks original from 1966-1968, ti’llidien/Subliminal Sounds)
Perfect collection. Maybe Soft Power’s biggest influence.
Q. How do you feel playing live?
Playing live its always fun, its also to us a point where we can look ourselves and see us a bit outside of the box cos we spend lot of time our own space where we just jam and record stuff all the time and mainly we don’t do lots of gigs.
It has to have some good point to go and play a show for the people, we want it to be more than just play night after night different clubs and bars, we are not into that.
But yeah we love it when we doing it!
Q. How do you describe Soft Power sounds?
Well the Soft Power sound is a bit mixture of different styles. It has got some jazz-rock, some folk, some basic psych pop and prog. The new album has got more pianos and some sort of rhythmic back beats and we got also really straight psych stuff coming on the new album as well.
I would say either we do groovy kind of jazzy rock or really straight more fuzzy stuff both have psych rock elements into it.
Q: Tell us about the process of recording the songs ?
Song making goes usually, we playing around the idea that come up to someone's mind or just jamming.
Now its been pretty much I have(Mikael)got some sort of idea on mind and we been playing it around and many times i arrange the songs more specifically and i also record the songs so its pretty much writing the song while recording the song or dub tracks. Then sometimes i ask some other musicians to involved if the songs needs some instruments outside of the band and i like to use different instruments on the tracks.
Q. Which new bands do you recommend?
Not sure what new acts should suggest. Keep searching its always fun to discover something new.
Could recommend couple of new song from past years and now.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - The River
Hills - Och Solen Sänkte Sig Röd
Dungen - Trollkarlen Och Fågeldräkten
Yussef Kamaal - Yo Chavez
Jukka Eskola Soul Trio - Hong Thong
Q: Which band would you love to made a cover version of?
I think we could cover or would love to cover amazing song by Donovan - Get Thy Bearings
Q: What are your plans for the future?
We don’t have any major plans, we gonna record the second album, half of it’s almost done and now gonna record some wind instruments on it. Hopefully its ready late this year. We gonna also play one upcoming gig in Helsinki in this month and maybe do couple of more outside of the clubs, play under the sky in this summer. Thats the best.
Q: Any parting words?
Would like to say enjoy the sun and listening good music. Peace!
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Thanks
https://www.facebook.com/softpowermusic/
https://softpowermusic.bandcamp.com
