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M​ä​kkelä feat. Nightbird - Harbour Town

from Harbour Town by Mäkkelä

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about

This is a good example what songs can do to people. Or where they come from. Or what kind of funny ideas they get people into. I wrote this one after playing a gig in Turku/Finland with Nightbird who's been my support act that night. See, sometimes a quiet tour gig can transform a whole room or venue into something completely different. A whole different setting. I'm tempted to say a reflection of the music just being performed which was indeed special that night. Occasionally this happens. In retrospect that night I recall as an oddly misplaced evening service. That's what the situation in Turku turned out to be. Some unexpected magic moment.

I met Nightbird again the following day in Helsinki where she was attending my gig after which we spent quite some time talking in a bar in Kallio. The next day I wrote this song, pretty much inspired by a couple of things that happened to me in the town of Turku which can be a surprisingly exciting place. In a funny way though.

As the 2015 Turku show with Nightbird was part of the story it felt like the right thing to do to ask Anna-Stina (Nightbird's real name) whether she'd fancy writing the second verse and share the vocals, which she much to my joy did. Recorded a rough version of it with my mobile phone after we ran through the tune at 22-Pistepirkko's Altai studio where I stayed the night. That was in May 2015.

The tour went on, summer arrived and left again, early September came with "Last Of A Dying Breed" being released in Germany and me about to set out for another long tour stint (I mean really long) when I unexpectedly received a pretty good royalty payment. What to do with this? Save up for a rainy day? Buy some new toys? Or buy a flight from Germany to Helsinki right after the last tour show and book studio time to record the song? Stupid? Maybe. That's how I ended up with these three and a half minutes of music you're just listening to. That's what this song made me do. And I'll tell you what - I don't regret any of it. I'm glad it worked out the way it did, with Nightbird, with Johan Forslund, with Asko Keränen of Pistepirkko/Altai and subsequently Frank Mollena in Germany who did the final works to it.

maekkelae.tumblr.com/post/139913589251/the-nightbird-the-last-of-the-trash-folk

credits

from Harbour Town, track released May 13, 2016
Mäkkelä - acoustic guitar, vocals
Nightbird - slide guitar, vocals

Recorded by Johan Forslund at Altai Studio, Helsinki, Finland.
Mixed & Mastered by Frank Mollena at Lone Star Studio, Nuremberg, Germany.

Harbour Town illustration by Andy Conrad.

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Mäkkelä Germany

Finnish-German, Papua-born singer-songwriter performing solo and in numerous collaborations. Mäkkelä, Folk's Worst Nightmare Collective, Maekkelae & Orkesteri, Church Of The Blue Nun, Maekkelae & Grae J. Wall, The Anglo German Low Stars, The Très Biens, The Goho Hobos... ... more

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