VOICE · PIANO · VOODOO BLUES
Elli Maple
& Ismo Laakso
Voodoo Explosion
Two musicians, old blues songs and no safe distance. Elli Maple's fierce voice meets Ismo Laakso's prepared, percussive and otherworldly piano.
Listen on Spotify ↗TAMPERE HALL · 2,500 PEOPLE
A duo inside a much larger spectacle.
Elli Maple and Ismo Laakso appeared in Sami Saikkonen's large-scale production at a sold-out Tampere Hall. Laakso reshaped the musical dramaturgy for the occasion, building the duo's own songs into the larger performance.
Watch the Tampere performance ↗
THE LIVE ALBUM · PLASTIC PASSION · 2020
Stripped down until only the nerve remains.
The album grew from two themed concerts built around 1950s material. Recorded at Alvar Bar in Turku in October 2017, it captures Maple on vocals and Laakso on piano, with Heikki Hämäläinen on harmonica on three tracks. The eleven-song live recording was released by Plastic Passion in 2020.
THE ALBUM'S STAGE WORLD
Blues made theatrical.
The Voodoo Explosion album developed its own visual life with burlesque performers and a larger live ensemble. These images belong to that later stage world.
A KINDRED RECORD · 2012
Ismo Laakso
Psychoboogie Explosion
A companion from the same unruly roots: traditional material, rhythm and raw invention pushed into Laakso's own musical world.
Listen on Spotify ↗
PRESS
“Otherworldly pianism.”
Helsingin Sanomat · ★★★★
“Stripped, naked and uncompromising.”
Mika Roth · Desibeli.net
Helsingin Sanomat called the voodoo-blues concept an unusually fresh Finnish recording and heard a David Lynch-like atmosphere in the encounter. Desibeli praised the album's exceptional sound and the performers' refusal to decorate the songs unnecessarily.