My american dream

In the cover of the new release it is little me as a kid on my dear and most precious grandparents (rip❤️) lawn in Mänttä, Finland banging on some really specially customized drums. Looong time ago..😅

Some weeks ago I suddenly remembered this photo from the childhood as I was thinking what to do about the cover. I don’t know what kind of fate or something it was but the idea struck me like a lightning on the sauna terrace and I thought it might suit. After some digging and searching the photo was finally found and a cover was made out of it. In some funny way it resembles some sort of a dream come true. Little did I know that after all the years and decades I’d be playing music (and also banging the drums mostly for fun but apparently on some recordings also😉). Actually, I never really played anything before later in the secondary school. And basically, maybe that is kind of a personal ethos of an American Dream as pursuing ones dreams and have the liberty and to be free to do so. Also the song title was a kind of a work name for a really long time but somehow it got stuck there in the end. I realized that maybe it suits the idea of being free and pursuing the dreams. Especially during the last a couple of years for me the title has had a somewhat provocative tone regarding ”America” so it took time and some personal approval to get used to it. And to be honest, I have never even been to US yet so it’s kind of funny thing as well..🤓

Take care and enjoy the moments of the late Summer! Stay true, stay healthy and stay tuned!❤️

-RR

Half broken heart

Hello! 

Well, to start with something I must admit that this is another pretty important and meaningful day in my musical life since the first release 11 weeks ago. And I feel really good! 🤗

I don’t know why but this song’s history reminds me somehow of a butterfly with it’s different phases. #metamorphosis

It was somewhere around 2005-2006 or so and I think I had the song already quite ready as a scruffy demo but as a totally different kind of a version. Yet I guess most of the puzzle pieces were there in a way and I kinda knew it.

At the time life wasn’t that OK or let’s say that at least there were some turbulence in life’s different divisions and the ride was a bit bumpy what it comes to professional and private lives occasions. And that´s life and so be it.🤠

Well, many things happened both in private and professional lives and the song was left there and got buried with a loads of stuff, time and endless amount of other priorities and activities.

Then the Spring 2020 came and life was all of a sudden different on many levels. I suddenly remembered this song ’cos once in a while during all the years I had bumped onto the old demo. I had always liked it a lot and now decided to give it some more care and attention.

And after some serious CPR and heavy use of a defibrillator it truly came alive as an old piece of music in a totally new form. Don’t know why but somehow I knew immediately that I was on the right track. So here we are now and it is out there spreading its wings.

❤️🙏🤗

Take care and enjoy the Spring!! -RR

Ps. Check out the song and spread the news if you already haven’t! 😉

https://halfbrokenheart.lnk.to/28HTbOzU

https://ansp.org/exhibits/online-exhibits/butterflies/lifecycle/

#12022021

Well, I don ́t even know where to start. But thanks for reading at least this far. Hehe ;D

The whole journey to this day has been so long that even I don ́t know where is the actual starting point or where to begin counting. In some symbolic way, it could be the day somewhere in 1989 when I had gotten my first nylon-string guitar, then gradually learned the first few chords and wrote my first song. As far as I ́ve been playing and practising I have also made songs, from psychedelic prog-rock to fusion jazz and etnofolk to contemporary pop. But I have never released anything under my own name until this day. I don ́t know whether it is good or bad thing that I ́ve had come so far for that. But in my opinion I could say that it is more a positive thing. And I somehow believe that there is a time for everything. But anyways, here I am and we are here. :D

This song Painless Love (at least in some form) was basically written already somewhere ten years ago and I always thought there is something good. At least something that I liked and something that resonated in me. But it took quite a long process until this day. And via my homestudio, a studio in Copenhagen and a studio in Helsinki the final form finally saw the daylight at a mastering studio in Espoo January 2021.

My deepest thanks to each one of you being interested, involved and for staying tuned! <3 There will be more. :)