Jaako Eino Kalevi: Artist You Should Know

Jaako Eino Kalevi.

As names go, that’s a pretty darn good one, in my humble opinion.

It looks like a freaking Star Wars name, but it isn’t. It belongs to a Finnish artist whose music skirts a lovely nebulous place between the leftfield psychedelic R&B of Connan Mockasin, the neo-noir synthscapes of Johnny Jewel and the jangle pop of The War on Drugs. The result sounds like the product of a bizarro, Nordic Paisley Park Hall & Oates trying to make a Tangerine Dream record.

This is all good I mean.

Kalevi has released a bunch of work (including some cool stuff on BIS) in the last 6 years, but his latest album on Weird World is the first to bear his name and seems like a definitive introductory statement from an artist who wants you to get to know him.

One of the tracks (possibly my favorite…for now) is “JEK” in which Kalevi says some stuff in Finnish and literally repeats his excellent name over and over again. It’s his, “my name is Prince and I am funky” and I totally buy it. I’m in.

I’ma pop the Kalevi tape in and take the landspeeder for a whirl. May the Force be with him.

[youtube width=”500″ height=”344″]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoTDrwdPZjk[/youtube]