MIKKO JOENSUU – Amen 1 (Svart SVART017)

Amen 1Sweden has long led the way for crossover Americana influenced Scandinavian folk and roots, but it seems that Finland is starting to present a considerable challenge. Folk-pop outfit Jonas and I are already making waves and now comes Helsinki singer-songwriter Joensuu, making his solo debut after previously fronting shoegaze rock outfit Joensuu 1685 alongside drummer brother Markus.

The first of a trilogy, absolutely everything on it is played by Joensuu and although the instrumentation is predominantly just piano and guitar, many of the tracks are swathed in orchestral string arrangements or feature pedal steel. Drawing heavily on the American folk tradition for what he describes as “an effort to find balance between great sadness and beauty, and to understand the very strange state when one’s mind is close to collapse and yet at the same time more alive than ever”.

As such, it’s a soothing affair, percolated, as might be gathered from the title, with biblical and religious imagery and references and themes of  forgiveness, morality, memory, struggle and epiphany, opening with the hymnal ‘Enjoy It While It Lasts’, a widescreen seven minute (half of the eight tracks are over five minutes) melancholic slow waltz as he sings how “sometimes hope’s just not there” and that “everyone has their own burden to bear”, but reminds that being alone isn’t “always such a bad thing, you might start feeling things you’ve never heard”.

An orchestral sweep also floods the equally lengthy ‘Sometimes You Have To Go Far’ with its major piano chords, an inspirational emotional awakening to the realisation that though you may be so yourself you’re not necessarily alone and that “sometimes you have to go far to see you’re at home”. Equally lush, but somewhat shorter, ‘Take Me Home, Oh Lord’, another hymnal, has American folk gospel colours, the piano evoking some wooden church on the wilderness frontier. There are sparser numbers too, ‘Warning Sign’ a slow pedal steel and piano salvational waltz while, driven by sultry percussion with ghostly pedal steel, ‘Closer My God’ is altogether breathier and bluesier.

He’s been likened to Cohen and you can certainly hear hints, notably so on the tumbling chords of the acoustic guitar-backed ‘Thief And A Liar,’ another song about of solitude as he sings that, despite the absence of absolution, “I don’t mind as long as I feel free”. The album closes on the sparsest and shortest track, just under four minutes, my personal favourite, a plucked banjo and harmonica accompanying ‘Valley Of Gold’, a spiritual about seeking redemption you could imagine the Louvins having recorded. A soul cleansing listen, Joensuu says the next two parts will take slightly different musical directions while remaining within the same emotional journey. I can’t wait to hear them.

Mike Davies

Artist’s website: http://www.mikkojoensuu.net/

‘Warning Sign’ – official video:


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