Skip to content
Unfortunately, I’ll have to keep things brief this week as I’m running late, but if an abbreviated staff pick doesn’t give you your “Daniel talking about records” fix, you can watch last week’s episode of What Are You Listening To? with me as a guest. I was joined by WAYLT?’s host Mike along with Tom from Static Shock Records and Dave from Sewercide Records. Shoegaze was derided. The gospel of Wire was sung. A good time was had by all. Watch it here.
One record I mentioned in passing on WAYLT? is my staff pick for this week: the debut LP from Finland’s Ratsia, released in 1979 on the Johanna label. Many of you know how great Finnish hardcore is, but their ’77-era punk scene was just as strong. Ratsia is one of my favorites, but there are a ton of great bands: Eppu Normaali, Kollaa Kestää, Loose Prick, and many more. While American punk bands from the 70s often sounded scrappy and raw, many of the Finnish bands were quite professional-sounding, following the lead of bands like the Buzzcocks and Stiff Little Fingers who continued growing after punk’s initial explosion of energy. Like those bands, Ratsia had an artisan’s approach to pop songwriting, and they weren’t afraid of strong production values either. If you’re the kind of punk listener who goes deep into the discographies of the ’77 set rather than just focusing on the earliest stuff, I bet you’ll really appreciate what Ratsia does.
After this self-titled LP, Ratsia released two more albums before they disbanded in 1982. Their second one, Elämän Syke is a little more new wave-sounding, of a piece with the first album but adding more layers and textures, while their final LP, 1982’s Jäljet, takes a turn toward post-punk. There are also four singles along the way, but I haven’t heard those and we’ll see if I ever lay my hands on them. Hopefully I can return to Ratsia’s discography again one day when I have more time and energy to dig in.