POIKA PILVELLÄ

HAIKARA may be the third most respected (following WIGWAM and TASAVALLAN PRESIDENTTI) of the bands in the classic Finnish Prog era. The respect is based mostly on the eponymous debut (1972) and the slightly more uneven Geafar (1974). The third album - and the final one, until the band's comeback in the 90's - called Iso lintu (1975) contains a strikingly uneven bunch of short tracks, though some of them still quite beautiful fusings of rock/pop and Art Music elements.

Each of the three albums were recorded with a different line-up, and this single marked yet another version of Haikara, which was always led by the late great Vesa Lattunen, a multi-instrumental composer. After this release Lattunen participated in various music projects - for solo artists, theatres, etc. These two songs have appeared as bonuses on the CD release of Geafar, and I'm sure most prog listeners will see them more as curiosities and items of completionism than as a source of deep artistic enjoyment. There even was inconsistence about the track title on the original single: "Poika Pilvellä" ("A boy on a cloud") and "Pilven poika" ("The boy of the cloud"). The latter seems to be the official one.

Probably it was an attempt to play more popular and catchier music at the time when prog was rapidly and completely out of fashion in Finland. This is pretty funky stuff. Technically 'Pilven poika' is a relatively well-creafted, lighthearted track with a colourful arrangement, but the composition per se is rather poor and monotonous, and Vesa Lattunen was never a good vocalist. The song sounds terribly outdated today.

'Jumbo' is a tight and groovy instrumental and works much better. It's not the most original slice of funk music but nothing in it feels disjointed as on 'Pilven poika'. Anyway, on a prog site it would be a bit inappropriate to rate this single higher than two stars.