Category: Writings
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About “My Dreams Of Tomorrow”
Every Song Had to Belong From the moment I began composing “Eternal Echoes,” I knew the album needed variety. Every song had to stand on its own — complete, distinctive, with a strong identity of its own. At the same time, they all needed to belong to the same larger picture. The songs are individual…
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About “Free To Fly”
The Origin: A Farmhouse and a Feeling of Floating I originally wrote “Free to Fly” in the summer of 1994 or 1995 — the exact year has dissolved, which tells you something about how old this song is. The inspiration came from something else entirely: a three-month summer course I took in 1993. We stayed…
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About “I Held You Once”
The idea for “I Held You Once” came from my time in India. I lived and worked there for a little over a year, on assignment that was meant to last two. The pollution cut it short and sent me back to Finland, but the country itself I loved without reservation. In 2010 Mumbai was…
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About “Poliphilos’s Party For The Poor And Betrayed”
Never has songwriting been such a journey as with “Poliphilos’s Party For The Poor & Betrayed”. And right away I want to thank my produced Juho to staying with me as I tried to merge the impossible. What I knew from the start that the “Eternal Echoes” album needed a “mentor song” – a track…
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Journey to “Poliphilos’s Party”
The Island Says No Prologue: The Leftovers Once. They. Were. Gods! Now they lived on an abandoned island, because everybody who is somebody migrated to America. Indeed, in the mid-19th century, as the great steamships churned across the Atlantic carrying empires, fortunes, and the promise of a new dawn and gold, the major deities migrated…
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Journey to “Love Boat”
The Boat The ship was a floating hotel with a deck plan that changed at the whim of the tide. Poliphilos boarded in Southampton on a Tuesday that felt like a Friday, carrying a suitcase and a contract that described him as a dance pianist and occasional vocal partner. The employment agency had called it…
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About “Skylark”
1. The Origin: A Room, a River, and a Rebellion The seeds of Skylark were planted in the early years of my independence, a time of raw self-discovery and quiet rebellion of the 1990s. After graduating from high school and completing my army service, I was expected to follow a conventional path—doctor, lawyer, or pilot.…
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Journey to “Skylark”
Doin’ the Pompeii Late last summer Poliphilos was passing by Pompeii when he heard a strange sound. The Italian heat sat upon the skin like in August like it has done for millennia, and pressed his emerald green Indian silk suit into the bones like a heavy, ancient weight. The air in this region smelled…
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About “European Son”
1. The Origin: From Daydream to Dualism The inspiration for “European Son” emerged from a deeply personal place, rooted in my own romantic 20-something daydreams in the 90’s. There’s also a sonic memory from the performance of Helsinki Dance Company and its interval act sung by Tove Wingren in 1996. It must then have been…
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Journey to “European Son”
The Letter and the Flight The letter arrived at his Scandinavian getaway on heavy, cream-colored parchment, sealed with wax that smelled of river mud and old pine. It bore no return address, only a single line in elegant, spidery script: The River is being drained. Come. The Maidens Poliphilos knew the handwriting. It belonged to…