KAURIINMETSÄSTÄJÄT

TEXT

MIKKO MÄÄTTÄNEN

PHOTOS

ELIAS MARKKULA

 

Heikki Petrell and Tuomas Kaitanen are Kauriinmetsästäjät, an electropop duo from Helsinki, Finland. They’re not just bandmates, but childhood friends and fellow BBA students. In addition to this, they are members of an indie rock group called Stockers! Yup, written with an exclamation mark.

“The idea of Kauriinmetsästäjät was born out of a love for electronic music. When we decided to perform in Finnish and recorded our first demo tracks, we also realized that there aren’t that many similar projects in Finland. We found it fascinating.”

“Stockers! is taking a break at the moment. We haven’t made any decisions one way or the other concerning it’s future. 2017 is actually the tenth anniversary for Stockers! and we’ve even discussed doing a birthday show to celebrate it.”

Kauriinmetsästäjät has released four singles during the last year or so. Each of them has received a comfortable amount of airplay and it seems like the material is just getting better, song by song.

The latest single, Revi mua, is a collaboration with the promising singer-songwriter Vesta. She will be joining Kauriinmetsästäjät on stage during the forthcoming festival season, which is getting an early start at Valoa Festival in Tampere.

Petrell and Kaitanen list names such as Empire of the Sun, Todd Terje, Daft Punk, Justice, Röyksopp, Chromeo, Jamiroquai and Gorillaz as their influences. An 80's vibe is also present in a lot of their compositions.

Whether it’s music, promo pictures or their outfits, style and visuality are important factors for the duo.

“Aesthetics are very important to us. Usually we have powerful visuals made specifically for the gigs, combined with showy lights during our live sets.”

Even though Kauriinmetsästäjät performs in Finnish, their stuff sounds international. Stockers! was a Finnish ”export hope”. How about this project? Is there a demand for electropop with Finnish lyrics abroad?

“This has been brought up many times in our interviews. In principle, we’re doing music for the domestic market, but if it turned out that a demand outside the confines of Finland existed, we wouldn’t say no.”