Finest Sounds Autumn News Vol 1.

Autumn news from Finest Sounds, part 1: Logomo sessions 07 - 08.09.2017


FinEst Sounds project has reached the Demo season 2, with new activities and first cases with bands and brands, artists and companies. In the beginning of September 33 students and 7 teachers from Tallinn University, Humak and TAMK get together in Logomo, Turku. The programme started on Thursday 7.9. with a short introduction of all the students. It was truly an international group, since the students of TAMK and Tallinn were not only from Estonia or Finland but from 10 different countries, including Venezuela, Mexico, Latvia, Russian among others.

Most of the students joined the project for the first time, so lecturer Jyrki Simovaara from Humak started the session with overview of Finest sounds and explained the roles of universities and students. Assignment number one was free brainstorming for ideas for demos. Combining any Estonian or Finnish artist with one creative industry brand, so that they can support each other in order to reach Japanese market successfully.

Even though the students met each other for the first time and working time was short, in the end of the day we could see creative, crazy and potential combinations like Estonian artist Noëp combined with Ivana Helsinki; Finnish vocal group Tuuletar with Saana and Olli; heavy rock band Mokoma with Morrow Games; Finnish artist Suad with Gemmi; The Lieblings with Lingvist, among others. Intensive afternoon with inspiring ideas!



On Friday 8.9. Finest teams had the opportunity to listen to two lectures about Japan, Japanese culture and consuming habits. First speaker, Jenny Moberg from 07design. She has been working in the Japanese market for several years as an agent for Finnish design and has broad a knowledge about the culture, values and habits in Japan. She underlined the importance of IPR process and also reminded that the “old media” should not be underestimated channel in marketing.

“Japanese people appreciate high quality, fairness and loyalty”, she told and said that Nordic lifestyle has great value.


Tuomo Saikkonen from Sakara Records told us the good story how a Finnish heavy rock band Mokoma ended up to play in Loudpark, one of the biggest festivals in Japan. Ichiro Aono, from Japanese Creativeman, visited Tuska festival in 2012 and got enthusiastic so next year Music Finland organized Mokoma to a showcase gig at Studio Coast for an entranced audience of 1500 people. Couple of years silence, negotiations and then 2016 Mokoma was in Loudpark. About the differences in business culture Tuomo told that it was impossible for the Japanese business people to believe that one artist of the band is also the CEO of the record company. It is important to learn in advance the hidden meanings and metaphors of things, like the case “Stam1na and Hawaii shirts” educated.

Two intensive days in Logomo ended with the new presentations of student groups and feedback from the companies. The representatives from Bafe’s Factory and Vita Pictura were surprised about the visual demos and creativity of students. Next step is Music and Media, groups will continue their work online and results will be shown to Japanese delegation in Tampere in the beginning of October.


-Text by Sohvi Sirkesalo