Pekka Pohjola. One of my favorite musicians and composers. He was pretty popular in Finland in the 70s-80s though, but is almost unknown in english-speaking prog communities.

His early works remind me of Zappa heavily, yet still have his own distinctive sound and style.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-65Ee58UCQw[/youtube]

His last album, 'Views', is an example of the most beautiful jazz orchestra arrangement I've ever heard, specifically the 'Metropolitan' track. Unfortunately, no link to share; this album is pretty hard to find.

Greetings,

I became a huge Pekka Pohjola fan after stumbling across the album that contains the track you posted--packaged as The Consequences of Indecision by Mike Oldfield (one of about five different releases of the same album as it turned out)--in a cutout bin of a record store in Rutland, Vermont in late 1986. In addition to acquiring all his releases (and most others that he appears on), I volunteered to help with both his band's shows in NYC back in 1993 and have also contributed to liner notes on several CD remasters of his albums over the years.

Pekka was a remarkably gifted composer and has probably had more direct impact on my own compositional style than any single person. (It's really rare that I write a piece of music these days that does not, at least in some small way, contain some subconscious connection to his work.) It's very hard to believe he passed away nearly five years ago now, but I'm always appreciative of the large catalog of exquisite music he released throughout his career.

Cheers,


Alan

P.S. There are so many fantastic obscure bands (much lesser known than Pekka) out there that I really wouldn't know where to begin to list them here, by the way.

...and another three cheers for KRex - Picchio dal Pozzo was a lot of fun too.