Wigwam

"Being" was Wigwam's 5th album and represents one of the most profound and highly dramatized concept albums mixing religious and political themes in a very strange little album. The trademark of Wigwam's music was their unique ability to compose music of high progressive quality and complexity while still incorporating strong "pop-rock" aspects. The end result is a wild mix of Steve Hackett with the complex chording and musical themes not unlike Gentle Giant achieved (some pretty musically twisted parts). This album features great and varied instrumentation with great emphasis on keyboards (piano, organ, synths). Essentially"'Being" picks right off where "Fairyport" left off but does deliver a more aggressive and complex album.

Before Wigwam enter the land of the progressive they spent a few songs more in the Psychedelic vein with blues rock influences in many ways not unlike Pink Floyd. Finland's Wigwam were an original act from the start lead by Britan's Jim Pembroke's song writing and Jukka Gustavson's organ grinds and compositions. "Hard 'N' Horny" plays actually like 2 separate albums or in this case as 2 distinct sides. The album's first side clearly belongs to Gustavson (credited will all side one song penmanship) with his prog-blues organ drenched pieces and clever song writing drawing on genres of psych/jazz/avant art rock. In total contrast the second half of this album rests in the hands of Jim Pembroke (again all songs credit on side 2 to Pembroke) in a sadly forgotten, side-long, conceptual psychedelic masterpiece about some middle aged fellow named Henry.

A Finnish band fronted by ex-Pat Brit Jim Pembroke, Wigwam made some of the best hard progressive rock of the '70's. This record is a delightful effort with a real late '60's vibe featuring Pembroke's observant, and witty songwriting, diverse instrumentaion, orchestration and flashes of fuzz guitar. Somewhere between Procul Harum, Traffic and Caravan this is a lost classic of British/Finnish progressive rock music.

Formed in Helsinki in 1968, the band featured the talents of British Keyboard player and vocalist Jim Pembroke, Jukka Gustavson (keyboards, vocals), Pekka Pohjola (bass, violin, keyboards) and Ronnie Osterberg (drums). The end result was Wigwam's first real stab at pure progressive rock. On "Fairyport", Wigwam mix jazz, rock, pop all in one exploratory album with a nice wide range of themes and moods. Generally the songs are pretty organ drenched with lots of rhythmic syncopation. With "Fairyport" the threesome of Gustavson, Pembroke and Pohjola was completed. Jukka Gustavson wrote the most progressive pieces, with Jim Pembroke wrote the lighter and shorter songs and Pekka Pohjola's focus on the instrumental aspects.

Moving to Helsinki from London back in the mid ‘60s, Jim Pembroke became situated as one of a select few of first class U.K. rockers to move their talents to the continent. Pembroke’s amazing songs, vocals, lyrics and production has graced many fine rock records to come out of Finland and even Sweden. Now 35 years after his early recordings with Blues Section and Wigwam, Pembroke & Co. have recorded and released another brilliant new studio album in 2005.

Wigwam have the rare distinction of being the only '70s band from Finland to have made any impact outside the country, as well as being an incubator for the country's top prog musicians – the only catch was that the anticipated massive breakthrough never happened…