lockdown : vinyl find #7.

I did not think of Helsinki as a digging destination. I went there because a friend of mine was living there at the time, and he could offer me some lodging. It was the perfect plan for a city trip. I've always liked cities opened on the sea. Another friend, who owned a small boat, gave me a tour of the bay, and it was a grand experience. 

Besides, Helsinki turned out to be a paradise for record diggers. The sea-loving friend explained it by the long cold nights of the 6 month winter that require some kind of entertainment. And even if I dug in a oven baked city, the hunt was satisfying.

It started with a disappointment though. Closed shops were due to the summer vacations. Then I found Digelius Music, home for jazz and ethnic grooves lovers, in both original and reissued pressings. The owner was a knowledgeable guy, and was very talkative, keen on sharing his tastes. Do ask him about the legendary Finnish record label Love Records (by the way, the greatest logo ever), and he'll fill up your next 30 minutes or so with stories. The owner played for me some nice Finnish psych and prog rock, initially issued on Love Records and recently reissued by Svart, a label based in Turku, an historic city of Finland. Later on, another record dealer booed at me for buying these reissues but whatever, the music was nice and maybe the perfect audio system helped. And when you know the originals are pretty rare, as well as the very limited reissued pressings, one (tourist) can't be too picky. Overall, Digelius was a nice way to start.

Apart from Digelius, I think I shopped in four or five other stores, and most of the times, I found talkative record dealers, who would be glad to share knowledge and information. Interestingly enough, those shops stored many genres, from the local jazz and rock to Bollywood soundtracks, Asian stuff, Brazilian records, and the main attraction of the place : the deep crates of records from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.  

I've never been to Sweden, so Finland was the closest logical place to purchase a record by Bo Hansson. I think I bought it at a shop called Redhill Records (or RHR), whose owner had an interest for samples, and labelled records with small notes on (potential or known) samples which can be found. This one album, "Ur trollkarlens hatt" is indeed filled with potential samples. A guy called akabrownsugar used it on several occasions. I can't think of any beatmaker who wouldn't exploit this one. 

The atmosphere set by synth wizard Bo Hansson on this album is supposed to be inspired by The Lords of the Rings and the world created by Tolkien. Get rid of the musical references you may have acquired from the Peter Jackson's trilogy. Instead, expect instrumental progressive rock, jazz, ambient and experimental. And again, who doesn't love a flute solo ? A musical bliss.  

Bo Hansson - Ur trollkarlens hatt. 

Here's the album, as a YouTube playlist.