“We were trying to abandon those traditional roles in the band — where one is a drummer and one is a bass player and one players guitar and all that — and just focus on ideas,” says the band’s Artturi Taira. “It makes the process more free from egos and much more collective.”
For today’s Music Monday, we have a pair of brand new videos from the multi-tasking Finnish indie pop band off of its second U.S. album (third album overall), Solar [iTunes link].
The album’s moniker is certainly fitting, as the bright songs it contains make for perfect summer listening. Curiously, though, the album was recorded in t he House of Culture, a former 1950s movie theater originally built for Finland’s Communist Party bereft of natural light, in the band's hometown of Helsinki. That juxtaposition of light and dark can be found coursing throughout the disc.
The first vid below is for “Laws of Gravity,” a sunny, drum-driven jam whose upbeat rhythm belies lyrics like: “We made all the difference/We were all that mattered/Just like an apple around its core/Then it finally happened/We got old.”
The video features Finnish ski-jumping footage from the late ’80s. Taira says it’s, in part, an homage to the sport — which the band members watched on TV when they were young. (Taira tried his hand at ski jumping once, but vowed never again after hurting himself.)
Also, they liked what the sport represents. “Some sports can be really absurd, but what is more absurd than ski jumping?” Taira says. “You concentrate everything you’ve got on that...
