There are two albums from the pohjolas available. "I cracked my head on a rock" from 2005 contains 15 popsongs played by the four members of the group. The debut album "keep my eyes but don't pin and mount them" (2003) was recorded and played by Matti Pohjola on his own (see below). But he felt a bit lonely working that way, so he formed the quartet the pohjolas: Matti, Carl, Lars & Thomas. 

                                                        

There are some new instruments on "I cracked my head on a rock" that couldn't be heard on the first album, for example: double bass (sometimes with a bow), tuba (a helicon, a "circle-shaped" tuba that you kind of wear), Wurlitzer piano (with a trembling tremolo effect), Hohner organa (a very old electric organ with a noisy fan. It is like a big electric harmonica), clarinet and flute, just to mention a few. Less electric instruments and some more sensitive michrophones were used for the purpose of getting closer to a direct and acoustic feeling. The sound is also more vivid and dynamic as there are more people involved.

 

There's a quite big picture if you click on this one

Here you’ll find lyrics from both albums

                                                                contact phone etc, please scroll

                                 LIsten to close to you                                                                                                      Listen to a knitted model

 

                                        Some reviews of both albums

 

the pohjola's

Keep my eyes but don't pin and mount them (released 2003)

(ARKOCD006)

The album “Keep my eyes but don’t pin and mount them” was written, played, sung and recorded by (Matti Pohjola) during the summer of 2002. (Remember it was a long summer this year.) Actually this is not really true, because one or two of the songs were written already in the spring, but that’s just one or two of them.

 

Pictures of the pohjola's.

The equipment used was a portable hard disk recorder (Fostex VF08) and two microphones (my friend Lars' AKG C1000S, and one old Shure something). Nothing else. Well, except for the instruments of course. Some of them were borrowed (thanks), like the bass guitar (my older brother’s Japanese Aria from 1978), the drums, the beautiful Philichorda organ from the late 60's (thanks Arvid) and the other organ - a cool electric Yamaha from the mid 70’s, I’d guess.

 

This is a list of the instruments that were used on the record:

voice
acoustic guitar
electric guitar
electric bass guitar
drums
mandolin
bouzouki
baglamas
mandola
tenor banjo
Philichorda
Yamaha organ
cornet
baritone horn
square piano
tambourine
body percussion (handclaps, hands + lap)

The square piano is nice. It’s quite old - from the 19th century and it’s enormously heavy. I bought it at a flea market in Uppsala for 1500 SEK and it was so hard to carry it up the stairs at home. Of course it was completely untuned but I tried to tune it a bit for the recording. I never play it but I wanted to use it for something more than a piece of furniture, so now you can hear it on two tracks.

The baritone horn is special as well. I don't know the age of it, but it's a Salvation Army instrument, for which it was specially made. It has their name on it and the Blood and Fire mark. The instrument is also very chubby so it looks funny.

the pohjolas: address etc.

 Matti Pohjola

S:t Göransgatan 32

SE-753 26 Uppsala

matti (at) denflygandebokrullen (dot) nu

+46 18 69 24 38

+46 739 466 303