For parts of the year, Mikko Von Hertzen lives on the top floor of a 16-storey ashram in Kollam, on India's tropical Malabar coast. The view is full of the colours and noises that have informed his band's music-widescreen, enigmatic matter with rock vigour and a pop heart. Birds and butterflies swoop across the sky. Horns honk from the streets. Down by the sea, fishermen play cards under palm trees. Songs, chants and chatter drift up from various devotees and monastic disciples, all of them here for the spiritual wisdom of Mata Amritanandamayi Devic (or 'Mother Amma' as she's often known).
It was this apartment that Mikko moved into for seven years, back in the late 90s, following some hedonistic years in different touring bands. And it was here, in 2000, where he and his brothers Kie and Jonne (both of them visiting from Finland) decided to join forces as The Von Hertzen Brothers - looking out at the Arabian Sea, worlds away from the icy forests of their motherland. "I look out from my window that is facing the sea, the next thing there on the horizon is the Horn of Africa," Mikko, now 52, tells us.
"If you think of the soundscape, the ocean is moving all the time, there's a lot of birds screeching; every sunset they come back, they live here close by. But then here I'm so high up, and people are playing music in different locations around this building, so I get this kind of polyphonic soundscape." It's this height and openness that you'll hear on the Von Hertzens' new album, In Murmuration. On the back of two denser LPs, in a way it's something of a palate cleanser. 2017's moody, forward-kicking War Is Over drew on the refugee crisis across Europe. In 2022, their prog masterpiece Red Alert In The Blue Forest mixed the introspection of lockdown with impassioned environmentalism, the latter leading to the creation of a conservation area in Loppi, Southern Finland.
This story is from the December 2024 edition of Classic Rock.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the December 2024 edition of Classic Rock.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Joan Armatrading
The singer-songwriter on her new album, inspirations, being a 'band', what her key was about, meeting Nelson Mandela...
Meat Loaf: I'd Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)
It was the power ballad to end all power ballads, and 30 years later people still ponder what the it’ is that the singer wouldn't do.
Kris Kristofferson: June 22, 1936 - September 28, 2024
Kris Kristofferson, the iconic, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter and actor who played a key role in advancing a strand of country music into a more raw and confessional direction now recognised as outlaw country, has died peacefully at his home in Maui, surrounded by family. He was 88 years old.
"I have come a very long way in the last two-and-a-bit years"
Back from the brink: the Thunder vocalist who survived major medical trauma returns.
EVER MEET LEMMY?
He's heard Lemmy's unreleased solo album, had dinner with Chris Holmes, told Paul McCartney to get a round in, been told gangster Reggie Kray wanted to have a word with him... He is Dogs D'Amour frontman Tyla 7 Pallas, and these are some of his stories.
"LET'S NOT FORGET ABOUT HAVING FUN"
With their ninth studio album In Murmuration, Finnish rockers Von Hertzen Brothers have replaced their erstwhile prog epics for a more honest approach to songwriting reflecting their personal lives.
IN THE BEGINNING
With previously unseen photographs from their early days as featured in the new Queen | Collector's Edition, Sir Brian May talks us through sights of the band in the early seventies.
BASS-IC INSTINCT
Plucked from obscurity in 1975 to be in David Bowie's band, then unceremoniously out of the picture five years later, bassist George Murray looks back on his time with the Thin White Duke.
High Rollers
When Ronnie Wood, the Stones and some A-list mates holed up at his house to help with his solo album, it sparked a days-long party, a Rolling Stones hit and the last album by arguably their finest line-up.
THE NAME OF THE GAM
When ABBA-mad Opeth leader Mikael Akerfeldt met one of their singers, he lost it”. She didn’t sing on their new concept album, but some other, perhaps unlikely, big names did.
