2018 will go down in the history as an important year for KORPIKLAANI. The band celebrated its 15th anniversary, released their 10th album »Kulkija« and finally wrapped up the year with a successful North American tour in December.
2019 will be just as busy. The Finnish Folk Metal Superstars will start the year with an 8-date Finnish tour and will be joined on stage with a brass section from Lahti Sinfonia. With KORPIKLAANI attracting a wide and varied audience, it is especially nice that the tour includes also two all-ages shows at Nosturi in Helsinki and Finlandia Klubi in Lahti. The show in Helsinki will be opened by WALTARI and the Norwegian TROLLFEST, while all Finnish shows will also be supported by PROFANE OMEN who recently released their latest album »Ooka«.
After the Finnish tour, KORPIKLAANI will continue their world wide »Kulkija« -tour with a month-long European run with TURISAS and TROLLFEST and in May, the band will once again head down to Australia and New Zealand.
Just recently, Pyynikin Craft Brewery unveiled a tasty KORPIKLAANI lager and to celebrate this occasion, the band will release a special tour edition of their new album »Kulkija« (“Wanderer”), which doesn’t only include the regular songs, but also a bonus CD titled »Beer Beer«. This disk, only available in the physical package, includes 14 versions of KORPIKLAANI‘s iconic song ‘Beer Beer’, graced by the likes of Christopher Bowes (ALESTORM), Steve “Zetro” Souza (EXODUS), Andreas “Gerre” Geremia (TANKARD), Jesper Anastasiadis (TURISAS), TROLLFEST, HEIDEVOLK and many more of their friends’ bands and musicians.
The first taster is released today in the form of a lyric video to ‘Beer Beer’ and you can listen to the track with Christopher Bowes, here:
The more ethereal band Jonne, led by the KORPIKLAANI lead vocalist Jonne Järvelä, will unveil a single trilogy started by the single ‘Kaiho‘ that was released in November and also featured WALTARI vocalist Kärtsy Hatakka. The trilogy will be completed with the releases of ‘Tuhka‘ in February and ‘Autere‘ in March. Both of these songs will also feature vocalist Riikka Jaakkola, familiar from the series Voice Of Finland. All three songs deal with the emotions of death and longing, and will be available for streaming and through other digital service channels.
With 14 tracks and a total running time of over 71 minutes, »Kulkija« is the group’s longest album to date. Working with producer Janne Saksa for the first time, the album was recorded at Petrax Studio (Hollola, FIN) and mixed at Sound Supreme Studios (Hämeenlinna, FIN). Mastering duties were handled by renowned engineer Svante Forsbäck (RAMMSTEIN etc.). The cover was designed by Jan Yrlund (BATTLE BEAST, MANOWAR etc.), who has already created several artworks for previous albums and singles for the band.
