Four and a half years after the coronavirus pandemic was first called (and it has never been declared over) I’m still waiting for the film about it. I guess what stopped Hollywood from making it is that China never got its comeuppance for releasing it onto the world and then trying to cover it up. Or alternatively, knowing how Hollywood operates, perhaps it’s because Hollywood wouldn’t condone a Chinese finger-pointing movie anyway.
I remember early on a streamed gig being played by the Norwegian band Löv, which included a brilliant specially written piece by Marte Eberson called Korona Toccata (and which was indeed a piano toccata). Unfortunately, it appears to be lost forever now and has never been recorded. I thought it might be the perfect intro music for that film.
Over the last four years I’ve heard many pandemic-related songs, the majority of them bemoaning the isolation that we all felt and lost loves, as well as lives. Occasionally one would take a different tack, demonstrating for example how the lockdowns originated and cemented relationships rather than terminated them. But the majority were depressing I have to admit.
One thing I’ve noticed lately is that they seem to have dried up, as if a line has been drawn under the whole thing and it’s time to ‘move on’. Try telling that to the relatives of the 17 million dead.
And then suddenly, out of the blue comes Finnish band Buko Shane with a pandemic-related album, ‘Pandemic Blues’, almost like a nostalgic look back in anger, or not, as the case may be. I wish I had more time to dissect it and examine if and how attitudes have changed and how they see those years now with the benefit of hindsight.
For now, here is the opening track, ‘Another Sunday Morning’ which I selected because I well remember how every day seemed to be like Sunday, to borrow from Morrissey, and how each one just seemed to roll over, one into the next, like Groundhog Day.
First, about the band and their style. They are well known for electrified Americana influenced experimental rock music and associated experimentation, but on ‘Pandemic Blues’ they opted for a more acoustic and minimalistic singer-songwriter approach with most of the songs featuring only vocals, acoustic guitars and one or two other instruments.
I have to say that Haikki Hänninen has the perfect voice for this sort of music, as well as a backwoodsman look to go with it; (think Hugh Glass in ‘The Revenant’), a sort of grizzled baritone. When he opens up, after a 50-second long acoustic guitar piece I could have listened to all night, it might be Johnny Cash up there.
The lyrics are terse and the key lines as I see it are, “I hear you’re doing fine/but me I’m singing the same old songs/’til the morning comes. Taking those lines alone; and possibly out of context, they are representative of how out of touch people got during protracted periods of non-contact and how they had to rely on distant memories to underwrite basic conversations.
Musically, while it is based on an acoustic guitar melody they use what I guess is a synthesiser, possibly a mellotron, to create a haunting backdrop to that melody and it is most noticeably effective during the bridge, which then becomes an outro, as if to suggest, ‘that’s all I can say right now’…
It’s all rather tasty.
I really must try to create some time to check out the full album. In the meantime here is ‘Another Sunday Morning’, as a lyric video.
‘Pandemic Blues’ is released on Long Lake Studio (LLS09).
The band comprises:
Haikki Hänninen – guitars/vocals
Ville Tolvanen – organ
Philip Holm – bass, mandolin and tailor’s fiddle (a repurposed sewing machine)!
Joonas Anttila – drums and percussion
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bukoshane/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bukoshane/ (it seems the link is broken as this is published).
