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Hot Heros feat. Iro Haarla : Vodjanoi (Karkia Mistika)

In January 2020 Hot Heros (Sami Sippola : tenor saxophone, Ville Rauhala : double bass, Janne Tuomi : drums) and pianist/composer Iro Haarla recorded an album of music influenced by nature and the spirit of Northern Finland. The recording sessions were held at Haarla´s old country mansion at Tervakoski, a beautiful house full of music, surrounded by big trees and a wild garden. A musician is free when he/she plays music and freedom is also at the very core of Hot Heros. However, on this album the freedom of improvisation was used sparingly to bear in mind the inner key of the compositions - written by Sippola, Rauhala and Haarla - that are beautiful, melodic and often calm but with a fierce inner flame. The album Vodjanoi invites the listener to hear the sound of the deep woods and offers peace of mind. The trio's trips to Lapland and especially to Sami-regions (the indigenous people of Northern Lapland) have been the main inspiration for this album and have left an abiding longing towards the North. ” Nature must stay as wilderness, ´cause it says what we are and what we must be.” - Topelius The quotation from author Sakari Topelius (1818-1898) on the inner sleeve of the album urges us to appreciate and preserve the wilderness and seek a deeper understanding to live together with nature. The album's name Vodjanoi comes from Slavic mythology and means a merman who lives inside a lake or at the bottom of the sea. He can be either a guardian to the fisherman or the arch-enemy depending on what one offers to him. Sippola who hails from a coastal town from south of Finland is well educated on local folktales and often inspired by them. Iro Haarla started her collaboration with the Finnish drummer and composer Edward Vesala in 1979 which continued until Vesala´s death in 1999. She co-composed and arranged all the music of Vesala including plays, movies and works for chamber orchestras and a number of recordings e.g 4 albums with Edward Vesala´s Sound&Fury for ECM. From the year 2000 on Haarla has led her own groups and performed her own compositions. Among these are the recordings for the German ECM Records “Northbound”, “Vespers” and “Ante Lucem, for Symphony Orchestra and Quintet”. Hot Heros started when Sami Sippola´s 10 year collaboration with the trio Black Motor ended in 2015 and he started his own trio with drummer Tuomi and bassist Rauhala. They have recoded 4 albums together : “Fill Up with Old Time Salvation” (Karkia Mistika), “Folkjazz from Finland” (Eclipse Music) which was a nominee for the best jazz album in Finland 2018 ,”Days after the Rodeo” (Eclipse Music) and ”Tässä ja Nyt” (Monsp), an album in collaboration with Finnish rap legend Hannibal. Along with the upcoming album “Vodjanoi” they have more recordings to come out in 2021 with Hannibal and others.