Thalamus

Nordic folk music with global twist

Riku Elomaa – 2- and 5-row accordion
Elina Lappalainen – double bass
Pauliina Pajala – 5-string fiddle
Henrik Norri – bouzouki

 

 

The Folk Band Thalamus has enriched the Finnish folk music scene for almost two decades. Their diverse combination of tunes – both traditional and composed – originates from and gets influenced by the music of different parts of Europe, Americas and the Northern Africa. In addition to the melodies themselves, Thalamus has always put a great effort on the arrangements as well: “To make it interesting and often surprising for the audience too, to make it Thalamus Music!”

Thalamus was founded 1997 when four young folk music lovers got together and wanted to have fun. Little by little they started to make and play their own compositions also, and soon they were touring in Finland. In the year 1999 they won the Finnish Championship in folk music playing. Soon after Thalamus was well known among young folk bands in Finland. Their first cd Alga (ep) was published year 2001. After this it was time to study, and the band went different directions and line-ups.

The current line-up (Pauliina, Elina, Henrik and Riku) has been together since 2013 when Elina joined the band. That is also when yet another more active phase for the band started. Since then Thalamus has been playing in many festivals in Finland and also made tours in Belgium in the summers of 2015, 2016 and 2018. On summer 2018 Thalamus published their first full length album called Merenia followed by a tour in Germany in the spring of 2019.

During the past few years Thalamus have studied old folk tunes from the Päijät-Häme region part of the band comes, made a few new ones and married some of them with poems from Auli Kokkonen. All this resulted in a collection of regional tunes and songs performed in 2022 and 2023. Next chapter of the project will follow in 2024…