Insomnia

The Latebirds are a rock band from Helsinki, Finland. The band was formed in 2000 by drummer Janne Haavisto, bass player Mikko Mäkelä, singer/songwriter Markus Nordenstreng and guitarist Miikka Paatelainen. Guitarist Jussi Jaakonaho replaced Miikka Paatelainen in 2004. Organ player Matti Pitsinki from Finnish instrumental rock group Laika & The Cosmonauts was added to the line-up in 2005…

This is a handsome-looking compact disc release, with strikingly muted graphics in cool purple tones, featuring Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and Japanese harpist Naoko Yoshina. Here the pretty graphics go a little too far: the buyer finds no listing of compositions on the outside of the package and has no way of knowing what is played aside from a bare mention of the names of the 11 composers featured. That's where the All Classical Guide comes in. The works were all written in the twentieth century. They are: Michio Miyagi's Haru no umi (Ocean in Spring, a calming, melodic piece); Kaija Saariaho's Nocturne for violin solo (a somewhat avant-garde coloristic piece); Toru Takemitsu's Stanza II for harp and tape (also pretty far out and very Japanese-sounding); Yuji Takahashi's Insomnia for violin, voices, and kugo (strange, but oddly soothing); a movement from Satie's Le fils des étoiles as arranged by Takahashi (austere); Jean Françaix's Five Little Duets (100 percent charming); the Étude for violin from Richard Strauss's Daphne (also charming); Six Melodies by John Cage (simple and pleasant); Arvo Pärt's Spiegel im Spiegel (even simpler and not startling); Nino Rota's love theme from The Godfather (you know this one); and the final movement from Schnittke's Suite in the Old Style (gently Classical except for one deliberately horrendous dissonance).

This trio of recent works by Salonen (b. 1958) suggests that he's one of the most interesting composers on today's scene. All three share the virtues of his highly individual style, modernistic and accessible. “Foreign Bodies” is music of muscular, extroverted energy; “Wing on Wing” meditates mesmerizingly on the architectural ideas of Frank Gehry, assembling high-tech orchestral-electronic textures that gleam and shimmer like the wings of Disney Hall.

"...two coloratura sopranos join the orchestra sometimes as soloists, sometimes as instruments among others. In the beginning of the piece I pair them with the lowest-sounding woodwind instruments, the contrabassoon and the contrabass clarinet, and create a new kind of hybrid instrument, a sci-fi fantasy of a union between humans and machines."

“INSOMNIA” is the title of their new and third album. One hour of heavy metal, powerful, with melody! David Brixius seasons the twelve songs with killer leads, catchy, feelingly, brilliant! Guest singer for the metal hymn “Metal unity” is Ralf Scheepers (ex-GAMMA RAY, PRIMAL FEAR) who does a superb job! A video was done for this one as well. EDGE OF THORNS having a sound that grasps of contemporary developments and at the same level with other major players of the style !

Insomnia is a persistent or recurrent sleeplessness. When we sleep fitfully or lie awake night after night, we conjure up all manner of images, fantasies and feelings, which in the hours of darkness or twilight mostly seem confused, larger than life and very existential. That is how it is with our choice of Lieder. The pieces examine the great feelings and issues like love, death, hate, yearning, under the magnifying glass of nocturnal sensitivity. Worlds arise in which one no longer knows what is true and what is not. And that is what is special about our Insomnia: everything is possible, and everything is to be found in the ears and the eyes of the listener.