Dynasty

Dynasty & Dynasty Recordings

The Dynasty is a collective of three finnish bands: The Rasmus, Killer and Kwan, and their members are close friends. About nine of them have the same tattoo of Pauli and Lauri’s.
 
Once, The Rasmus were number one in the Top 40 in Finland, Killer were number two and Kwan were number three.
 
In 2005 Pauli and Lauri founded the Dynasty Recordings, a studio and record label in Helsinki.
At the moment the Dynasty Recordings produces:
Kwan
Mariko Pajalahti
Happiness
Belle Who
Iconcrash
Tyyne Raunio

Dynasty Recordings on the web:
www.dynastyrecordings.fi
www.myspace.com/dynastyrecordingsfi

Killer

Vocals and keyboards: Siiri Nordin
Bass: Timo Huhtala
Drums: Teijo Jämsä
Guitar: Tuomas “Tumppi” Norvio
 
Killer were formed in 1999 in Helsinki, produced by Pauli and Lauri; their musical style is rock-pop, and one of the assets of the band is the fusion of different tastes of each member: Siiri (singer) has grown up with jazz & blues, Timo (bassist) with grunge, Tumppi (guitarist) with electronic music and Teijo (drummer) with funk & folk.
 
Their first single “Hurricane” was released in February 2001 in Finland. In August it was followed by “All I Want”, a big hit in Finland and later that year they released the album “Sickeningly Pretty & Unpleasantly Vain”.

Their second album, “Sure You Know How To Drive This Thing” was released in 2003, the album included the song “Naughty Boy” which was a big hit and one of the most played songs on radio that summer not only in Finland, but also in the rest of Scandinavia and Germany.

The 5 of February 2005, Timo announced an undetermined break of the band, specifying “This didn’t include any great drama just normal things. First of all, we went five years in a row without a decent break so we ran out of ideas and energy. Second, we had different kinds of ideas about the direction Killer should be going, musically that is. Since we couldn’t agree on this we couldn’t continue”.
Website (no more online) : killertheband.com

Photo © killertheband.com

After the adventure with Killer, Siiri Nordin got her own way as a solo artist before with the song “Sydämeni Osuman Sai”, included in the soundtrack of the finnish movie “Helmiä ja sikoja”, then, after a long breack, with the debut album “Me Too”, released in 2006 under the finnish record label Next Big Thing. The album presents a unique, sunny blend of pop, folk and jazz with perceptive lyrics.
 
In March 2008 she released her second album called “Lyö Tahtia”, all in Finnish language.
 
This is the line-up of the band that followed Siiri both on the album recordings and the live performances:
Vocals and guitar: Siiri Nordin
Vocals: Aleksandra Babitzin
Bass: Mitja Tuurala
Drums: Reino Nordin
Guitar: Jussi Jaakonaho

MySpace: www.myspace.com/siirinordinmusic

Photo by Nina Nordin

Kwan

Vocals: Mariko Pajalahti and Tidjân Ba
Guitar: Antti Eräkangas
Bass: Kusti Kaukoniemi
Drums: Risto Rikala
Percussion and keyboards: Tatu Ferchen
 
Kwan were formed in 2000 from Pauli Rantasalmi’s and Antti Eräkangas’s idea to make an hip hop band. The original line-up included Aki at the drums, who let the role to Risto when he took part of The Rasmus.
 
The band’s debut album “Dynasty” was released in 2001, sold platinum and the band won two Emma’s, the finnish grammies.
 
The second album “The Die Is Cast”, released in 2002, went double platinum, and Kwan worked hard and toured ’til summer 2003 without stop, getting another Emma.

After a short and needed break the band returned in 2004 with the cd “Love Beyond This World”, which got gold, and included the hits “Unconditional Love” and “Decadence Of The Heart”.

Their fourth album is called “Little Notes” and has been released in Finland on 22 March 2006 and the first single extracted was “Diamonds”.

In 2009 they competed to represent Finland at the Eurovision song contest with the song “10.000 Light Years”, but they were eliminated in the super finals.

MySpace: www.myspace.com/kwantheband

Photo by Jere Hietala

Mariko Pajalahti

In 2008 Mariko Pajalahti begun her solo career releasing her first album “Fabulous Tonight” on April 2nd.
Pauli Rantasalmi from The Rasmus has produced the album. He has also written the songs together with Mariko. Antti Eräkangas has mixed this forthcoming album.
The album has been recorded in Singapore and in Helsinki.
“Co-operation with Pauli was great! We both were able to pursuit our weirdest dreams on this album and it definitely reflects me as a person. People usually wants me to place the music on this record to some category. So let’s just say it’s ‘crankdisco’. Decide yourself”, says Mariko.
 
MySpace: www.myspace.com/fabulousmariko

Photo by Matti Pyykkö

Happiness

Vocals: Alexandre Descargues
Bass and vocals: Jussi Korhonen
Guitar and vocals: Antti Eräkangas
Guitar and vocals: Hans Hansen
Drums: Mikko Pietinen
 
Happiness is an alternative rock band from Helsinki, Finland. The band was formed in 2005, and before that all the members of the band had been playing together in various groups from the late 90s.
 
Their Style can be defined as a mix of influences from bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Queens of the Stone Age, Muse, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Mew, Tool and Soundgarden.

Most of their compositions are in English. The lyrics and single covers are strong and rated for containing cursing, sexual connotations and politics.

Happiness’ debut album “66ft Melodies” was released by Dynasty Recordings by the end of 2007. The band gained some notable rotation with their first two singles from the album, “Accelerate” and “Need You”. The last one has been censored and criticized by some media for containing some explicit lyrics.

In the next year, they released two singles more, “Eternal Sunshine of a Communist Mind” in May 2008 and “We Have Come in Means of Terror” in October 2008.

In their home town, Helsinki, Happiness have been the opener band of artists such as Marilyn Manson and My Chemical Romance.

Website: www.happiness.fi
MySpace: www.myspace.com/hpns
YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/66feet

Belle Who

Belle Who is a multifaceted artist from Helsinki.
 
Her real name is Laura Malmivaara. She comes from a family where many different talents come together and where the passion for the arts seems to run into everyone’s veins. Infact her father is a cellist, her homonym cousin Laura is a well known actress in Finland, her uncle is a musician-actor, and many others relatives of hers are already famous in the world of sport and show business.
 
When Laura decided to undertake an acting career, she felt the need to change her name, not to be mistaken with her homonym cousin Laura, already famous back then. So she chose to change only the first name into Malla. So Malla, as actress, had many experiences acting in several Tv shows and cinema movies. Remarkable was her dramatic and flawless performance in the movie Kielletty Hedelmä (Forbidden Fruit, 2009). At the same time she was following her passion for the music, singing in a band called Elisabeth Underground.

Very soon Laura felt that it was about time to begin a real misician career, releasing her own album of her own music. At this point Laura came to a decision of changing her name once again, just to keep the two careers separated. Inspired by the fantasies of a little child who used to play with her dolls finding always original names for them, she finally came up with this brand new name: Belle Who.

Belle’s debut album “Can’t Whistle When You Smile” was released in May 2009, under the Dynasty Recordings label, with Jarkko Kumpulainen as producer and Lauri Ylönen as executive producer.

The album sonorities are indie pop, and three sigles have been released from it: “Tide” (2008), “Boy” (2009) and “Dice” (2009).
Tide anticipated the album release and was also chosen to be part of the original Blackout Cd Soundtracks, released in 2008, together with the official movie score created by Lauri Ylönen, and other songs by The Rasmus and other artists from Dynasty Recordings like Iconcrash, Kwan and Von Hertzen Brothers.
Some clips from the movie can be seen in Tide video.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Belle-Who
MySpace: www.myspace.com/bellewho

Iconcrash

Vocals and guitar: Jaani Peuhu
Guitar: Matti Toivonen
Drums: Oskari Vilmunen
Bass: Riku-Niilo Mattila
Keyboards: Arttu Juntunen
 
Iconcrash is a band from Helsinki, led by the vocalist Jaani Peuhu. Before putting together a real band, Jaani had been collaborating for several years with many bands, becoming a seasoned rock music professional at a pretty young age.
 
His inner need to do exactly what he wanted, without having to please anybody else except himself, led him to write some new songs that later on ended up in the very first Iconcrash album: “Nude” (2005). Jaani had written, produced and performed much of the record himself. Although there were also several guest musicians involved, it was basically Jaani’s solo album.

But soon he realized that it was time to put up a real band and, as stated by Jaani himself, “with the current line-up it’s good to explore the benefits of having a real band”.

The joy of working together showed up and after 14 months sessions at Dynasty Recordings Studios and Sonic Pump Studios, their second album called “Enochian Devices” has finally been released in 2009. Singles like “Strange, strange dark star” and “Everlasting” have definitely reached the heavy rotation on Finnish radios and Tv music channels. Both videos have been directed by the famous Owe Lingvall (The Rasmus “Justify” – 2008, “October&April” – 2009, Sturm und Drang, Amorphis etc.)

On the 8th of April 2011 has been released their new single “Delete”, that can be heard on their official website.

Curiosities about the band:
› Pauli Rantasalmi in the executive producer of Enochian Devices album.
› Jesse Valo, the brother of Ville Valo, (the frontman of H.I.M.) was the bass player of Iconcrash, but he left the band in 2008.
› The song “Faith” has been included in the original Blackout Cd Soundtracks, released in 2008, together with the official movie score created by Lauri Ylönen, and other songs by The Rasmus and other artists from Dynasty Recordings like Belle Who, Kwan and Von Hertzen Brothers (at that time signed under Dynasty).

Website: www.iconcrash.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/iconcrashgroup
Twitter: twitter.com/Iconcrash
MySpace: www.myspace.com/iconcrash
YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/Iconcrash
Blog: iconcrashtourblog.blogspot.com – thedoomsdaydisco.blogspot.com

Tyyne Raunio

Vocals: Lauri Tanskanen
Bass: Tommi Kotkamaa
Drums: Jussi Nikula
 
Tyyne Raunio is a rock band from Finland with lyrics written in Finnish. They describe their music as really, really, really heavy soft rock. With influences from the Swedish band Kent and the Danish band Mew, Tyyne Raunio create their own special brew of Finnish pop/rock music.
 
The name Tyyne Raunio could roughly be translated as “calm ruins”. Tyyne Raunio is also a traditional Finnish woman’s name.
 
Their lyrics consist of juxtapositions and contrasts; where the delightful meets the horrendous, sanity meddles with insanity, avantgarde penetrates pop – it’s all presented in a beautifully broken mix.

Tyyne Raunio is Lauri Tanskanen on vocals, Tommi Kotkamaa on bass and Jussi Nikula on drums. For now, live guitar and keyboard duties are performed by session members.

Tyyne Raunio was formed in 2006 and signed to Dynasty Recordings in 2008. Their debut album will be released in the fall of 2010.

Facebook: www.facebook.com/tyyneraunio
MySpace: www.myspace.com/tyyneraunio

Thanks to Tyyne Raunio for the biography

Photo by Heli Blåfield

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