Progressive Hard Rock
Womex 2015: meet the representatives Riitta & Sirpa at the Finnish stand 2.08
Esko Järvelä Epic Male Band is an exuberant, crispy and powerful Folk Rock line-up based in Helsinki Finland. The band is formed and led by Esko Järvelä, an innovative fiddler and composer from Kaustinen, which is often considered as the home of Finnish folk music. Esko grew up surrounded by several top-class folk musicians and has developed a powerful and unique fiddle style of his own breaking the boundaries of sometimes clumsy image of folk fiddling. Besides Epic Male Band he’s been touring around the world with numerous Scandinavian top folk bands such as Frigg, JPP, Baltic Crossing, and Tsuumi Sound System.
In addition to Esko’s fat fiddle the band consists of an edgy and multifaceted guitar team by Anssi Salminen and Jani Kivelä, delicately groovy bass lines are delivered by Juho Kivivuori and all this is framed with punchy and sparkly drumming by Janne Mathlin.
The backgrounds of the musicians include a grand variety of music styles from Scandinavian and Trans-Atlantic folk traditions to Tango Nuevo, American country rock and Free Jazz, just to mention a few. All these diverse backgrounds together with Esko’s compositions are turned into a contemporary musical mixture that’s very difficult to be described with just a few words: in media the sound collision has been assimilated for example with Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, Afro Celt Sound System, Jean-Luc Ponty, Bon Jovi, Jimi Hendrix, Lau and Led Zeppelin, when the band itself likes to talk simply about Progressive Hard Folk.
Epic Male Band’s explosive and cold-blooded live shows have already become a phenomenon among the audiences of major Finnish folk festivals and clubs. They want to entertain, they want to shake and move people, they want the music to drill right down to the bone. Every time they climb on stage they refuse to give no less than 110% to make the audience to return and experience the power and superfluous joy of Epic Folk Rock Twister again and again!
www.epicmaleband.com
soundcloud.com/epicmaleband
Contact:
Esko Järvelä
+358 400 757 273
contact@epicmaleband.com
Womex 2015 representatives:
Riitta Huttunen, riitta@maetka.fi, +358 50 355 1036
Sirpa Lahti, sirpa@maetka.fi, +358 40 7384 736