Poropetra

LOCATION : Finland

Status : Split-up
Music : Ethnic Folk


MEMBERS :
Nancy : vocals
Elsa Pardonen : vocals
Juha Jyrkäs (Korpiklaani) : throat-singing, 15-stringed electric kantele, djembe, bongo drums
Markus Ylikoski : guitar, backing vocals
Leo Herranen : bass, contrabass, backing vocals
Hittavainen (Ex-Korpiklaani) : violin, jouhikko, torupill, keyboards, mandoline, flutes & pipes, mouth harp, backing vocals

Past members :
Lari Hammarberg (Auringon Hauta) : drums


HISTORY :
Poropetra is ancient Finnish and it means the same as Elk of Hiisi (Hiiden hirvi in Finnish) from the Finnish mythology. Elk is an old totem animal of Finno-Ugrian and Siberian peoples, thus it describes so well Poropetra's unique ethnic rock music, combining together Finno-Ugrian myths and legends, Finnic kantele- and runo-singing traditions, Tuvan throat-singing, world music, psychedelic rock, blues, punk and heavy rock. The more specific and exact genre definition shall be left for a listener to decide.

Poropetra was founded by Juha Jyrkäs at the year 2002. Kuuraparta and Hittavainen joined the band from the beginning. The first demo, Poropetra, was published at the year 2004. It represented almost pure modern Finnish folk music. After the demo, the band wanted to electrify the sound and bring some more influences into the soup. Lineup changed at the year 2005, when Nancy and Elsa Pardonen came along as singers and Aapo Hopeakoski joined in as a drummer. Susanna Mast played the guitar a short time in Poropetra, but she left the band already at the end of the same year.

It took two years to record the new songs little by little. After the long and hard recording sessions, Poropetra's debut album, Sinihirwi saw the daylight at 18.07.2007. It had much elements from the rock music and heavy rock. Along with the electric guitar sounds, there was also some distorted kantele-effects on the album.

In the autumn 2007 skillfull guitar player Markus Ylikoski joined the Poropetra crew, which happened to change the sound even more guitar-driven than before. Lineup was changed once more very soon, as kantele player Kuuraparta and drummer Aapo Hopeakoski left the band because of their other duties. Pretty soon the new drummer was recruited. He was Lari Hammarberg from the band Auringon hauta. Poropetra also found the permanent bass player, when Leo Herranen joined in. With this new lineup, Poropetra is now writing some new songs to be published sometimes in the future..

In the autumn 2008 Poropetra signed a licence deal with Open Grave Records in order to reissue Sinihirwi. Unfortunately the label closed before nothing happened, so Poropetra is still looking for the licence deal. At the same autumn, however, the band took a part into a compilation album - published by Ukrainian ug-label called Boyanov Gimn - with a song Sinihirwi. The name of the album is New Dawn. Alongside with Poropetra, the compilation represents many other good European artists and bands playing good ethnic music.

Poropetra broke up in july 2015.


RECORDINGS :
Poropetra, demo 2004
Sinihirwi, album 2007


WEBSITES :

Contact : N/A

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