BIO

Hello and welcome to the less formal part of my website! My name is Philip Holm and I'm a musician based in Helsinki, Finland. I play double bass, electric bass and old machines turned into instruments.

Here I try to present most of my active projects and some special stuff from the past. These are bands and other collaborations I've been involved in. The frontpage of my website (click here!) is dedicated to my solo work, so head there if you want to read about that!

Lately I've been active in groups such as Barlast, Buko Shane, Oiro Pena, Helsinki Klezmer Kapelye, Hot Jazz Oh La La, 67 times Naked, The Bikini Brothers, Vallila Klezmorim, Krepsko and City Mirage.

WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Albums, albums, albums...67xNaked released the album We come to rinse! this spring, click here to listen to it on bandcamp. Buko Shane released their third album on August 1st (click here to listen on Spotify), and Barlast is working hard on finalizing their fifth album.

BARLAST

Barlast is a playful laboratory of musical communication and expression.

The Finnish ensemble's music is a blend of Nordic folk music, contemporary music, jazz and art rock, made possible only by the diverse backgrounds of the band members:

When not performing with Barlast, band leader and double bass player Philip Holm makes experimental music on old machines turned into instruments. Percussionist and flautist Minna Koskenlahti has studied the connections between boxing and drumming and is an in-demand musician in both traditional and avantgarde music projects. Woodwind player Santte Salonen composes musical fantasies and orchestral pieces and leads their party metal folk band Ritva Nero. Guitar wizard Heikki Hänninen leads the Americana band Buko Shane and his deep love for American music in its many forms brings in influences of anything from Eric Dolphy to Townes van Zandt and Frank Zappa to Swans.

The result is a sum greater than its parts. Barlast's music has been described as a spectral wonder - a fusion that might sound difficult on paper but in fact is easy and captivating to listen to.

Since its foundation in 2016, Barlast has released four albums and performed in clubs, festivals and showcase festivals around Europe and Japan. Currently the group is working on training AI algorithms to imitate traditional Finnish-Swedish singing and herding calls. The automatically generated vocals are incorporated in their new music.

Philip Holm - Double bass and synthesizer
Heikki Hänninen - Acoustic and electric guitar
Minna Koskenlahti - Percussion and flute
Santte Salonen - Soprano saxophone, clarinet and mänkeri

OIRO PENA

"The spiritual jazz vibe of the late 60s and 70s, spearheaded by the Coltranes, Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra is being recharged by a new generation!" - Jazz Journal

"This is so good, from Finland, this is Oiro Pena!" - Gilles Peterson, BBC

"Oiro Pena's music has previously been labeled underground, outsider, low-fi, folky; also energetic, astral, psychospiritual, warm; and akin to Sun Ra and Moondog. Can't really argue with any of that and if I was in a rush (and not obliged to meet a word count) that could easily be the review pretty much finished." - UK Vibe

Links to the latest albums: Puna and live.

Audience recording of Oiro Pena trio performance at Odyssey jazz festival 2021.

BUKO SHANE

Buko Shane plays songs with echoes from the other side of the Atlantic ocean.

The style could be defined as "Americana influenced music". The band mixes the sounds of organic singer/songwriter material with rawer electrified sounds, and even steps into the world of unfettered improvisation and experimental music.

Heikki Hänninen - vocals and guitar
Ville Tolvanen - electric organ
Philip Holm - bass and tailor's fiddle
Joonas Anttila - drums

TAILOR'S FIDDLE

I make music on old machines turned instruments.

The tailor's fiddle (Räätäliira in Finnish) is an instrument constructed by Mayim Alpert and Lauri Kallinen according to my initial idea. In 2022 Alpert built the qwerty kannel, or poet's piano, out of an old typewriter for me. In 2023 I released a solo album called Trådlös with music played only on tailor's fiddle. More about that on the frontpage!

The tailor's fiddle is constructed out of an old sewing machine and is played a bit like a hurdy gurdy. It has been used in theatre plays, rock concerts and even as the solo instrument in a playful concert by a symphony orchestra. Below are a few videos featuring the tailor's fiddle.

THEATRE

I've collaborated with the theatre group Krepsko since 2013.

Read more about Krepsko on their website: www.krepsko.com

I've worked as performer in the plays Fabsurdia and Illuminium and as a musician in the Portwine, Popcorn and Puppetry cabaret performances. I also play on the soundtrack of several other plays.

Fabsurdia

Welcome to Fabsurdia, a place where everything strange is possible. In Fabsurdia, stories start, turn and twist. Fabsurdia resonates, delights and inspires.

Fabsurdia is a visual rhyme flowing forward to its own rhythm, sometimes rhyming with what has gone before but always suggesting something new. Fabsurdia is a wordless theatre performance suitable for all ages.

Working group:
Mayim Alpert, Linnea Happonen, Nuutti Happonen, Philip Holm, Anisia Kronidova, Pavel Semchenko

Illuminium

"When birds start falling, and theremins are calling - we're close to Illuminium."

Illuminium is a story about a world that is not yet or no more, the glimmer in unexpected places, a girl with radiating golden shoes and a bit about bugs too.

In what do we want to believe even if we shouldn't?
In what should we believe even if we don't want to?

Working group: Mayim Alpert, Iivo Baric, Kristina Dementeva, Laura Hallantie, Linnea Happonen, Philip Holm, Gabi Reinhardt, Outi Sippola and Pau Zabaleta i Llauger

The play has been performed in Tehdas Teatteri, Turku and Nukketeatteri Sampo, Helsinki

Portwine, Popcorn and Puppetry

Krepsko cabaret is an international troupe traveling from one imagined city to another, a unique performance offering surprises, circus thrills, pearls of puppetry and live music.

"The cabaret should remain, resonating in the audiences' subconscious, as a smile the next day, a hummed melody, a picture you don't want to forget."

Performers have included Mayim Alpert (USA), Kristina Dementeva (BY), Perrine Ferrafiat (FR), Linnea Happonen (FI), Philip Holm (FI), Jan Jakubal (CZ), Antti Korhola (FI), Niina Lindroos (FI), Ville Niska (FI), Juho Sarno (FI), Katrine Weigelt (DK), Jiri Zeman (CZ) and other guests.

LIVE CINEMA

I've collaborated with media artist and director Nina-Maria Oförsagd in two live cinema projects: Breaks at Dawn (Barlast/Oförsagd, performed 11 times in 2019-2022) and City Mirage.

Breaks at Dawn

Breaks at Dawn is an improvised live cinema collaboration by the folk/jazz band Barlast and media artist Nina-Maria Oförsagd.

What happens in the surroundings at night where most are not awake, when time does not really exist as in everyday life? Breaks at Dawn moves in the hours when it’s dark and nothing happens, outside of everyday reality, in an interstice before a million city wakes up.

The live video art and concert involves a discussion between visual material and the sound world. With the help of a VJ program, Nina-Maria Oförsagd is editing a narrative live to the music while the sound track is created by Barlast. Together they create an experimental film in the moment during their live show.

Barlast examines the boundaries between composition and improvisation. The quartet brings together elements from both the archaic and modern Nordic folk music tradition with European jazz and improvised music.

Nina-Maria Oförsagd's separate film sequences have been made (and continues to be made) in an Asian environment, in urban million cities (Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong and imaginative Lin-Tsi). Oförsagd is looking for places in different unique surroundings where there is still a magic layer of time where she can squeeze in and build the fictional world and mood she visualizes. Oförsagd also works with local artists on site, with movement and expression using performance and improvisation as a working method in making the separate film sequences.

Philip Holm – double bass and synthesizer
Heikki Hänninen – guitars
Minna Koskenlahti – percussion and flute
Sanna Salonen – soprano saxophone, bass clarinet and mänkeri
Nina-Maria Oförsagd – live visuals

City Mirage

The live cinema and performance ensemble City Mirage: Where we don't see, directed by Oförsagd, is experimental film sequences designed for a live performance where film, words, sound art, experimental music and performance meets on stage. The working method on stage is a joint experimental improvisation performance.

City Mirage has been invited to perform shows in Sweden, Estonia and Finland. Within City Mirage I have worked with Nina-Maria Oförsagd (live visuals) Petri Kuljuntausta (guitar), Sergio Castrillon (cello), Mikaela Taivassalo (text and voice) Per-Viktor Hjalmarson (piano and performance) and Alm Nyman (performance).

SOUNDTRACKS

I've worked on the soundtracks of a few short movies and video art pieces.

Bar 2000

After a long time she is back in Tokyo again.
And she knows he's there. But still so far from her.
They are in each other's worlds, but alone.

The story of the two lovers is about estrangement, but it is also a movement in the gap between us all, and inside of us all.

BLANCHE Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo
YUJI 徳久ウィリアム William Tokuhisa
THE BARTENDER
THE UMBRELLA WOMAN 浜崎　花恋 Karen Hamasaki
THE MAN WITH THE FIRE 山㟁直人 やまぎしなおと Naoto Yamagishi

DIRECTOR, SCRIPT, CINEMATOGRAPHY, EDIT Nina-Maria Oförsagd
SCRIPT, WORDS Hannele Mikaela Taivassalo
MUSIC, SOUND MIX Philip Holm
GRAPHIC DESIGN, ANIMATION Sssimone Gaglione

16:9 HD Stereo Surround 32min
Premier in Tokyo 3 November 2023


Arrangement non-existent

Arrangement non-existent is a short movie made during the covid-19 pandemic.

How time is now, in motion, at place, experienced.
Through movement in a selected location as improvised performance two characters get a connection and their movement grows to a larger pattern together with sound, poetry and words.

Nina-Maria Oförsagd (FI) found this visual material in her archives during lockdown in spring 2020. With the cross-disciplinary group collaborating isolated from each other, it was developed further and revealed something about time in relation to our different self-connections and outer perspectives.

The group has been working individually. The performances were made on site in Taipei, words written and then read and recorded individually by Mauritz Tistelö (SE) and Hsinyen Wei (TW). The music was recorded individually through improvisation while looking at the video piece by each group member of Barlast (FI). All the different elements that have been made alone are joined together in the piece.

HD 16:9, stereo surround, 9min, 2020
Performance, poetry, voice, Mauritz Tistelö.
Performance, poetry voice, Hsinyen Wei.
Music by Barlast: Philip Holm, double bass; Heikki Hänninen, guitars; Minna Koskenlahti, percussion and flute; Sanna Salonen, soprano saxophone and mänkeri.
Philip Holm music directing, mixing, mastering.
Nina-Maria Oförsagd, director, cinematography, editing.

Sponored by Arts Promotion Center Finland.
Premier at Pori Film Festival November 2020.

THE BIKINI BROTHERS

The Bikini Brothers is the only known cold war revival band, playing forgotten American songs about the atomic bomb and the cold war.

Musically it's all about country, bluegrass and early rock'n'roll. Lyrically it's all about fearing two supposedly great threats: the bomb and communism!

Mayim Alpert - vocals, guitar
Antti Korhola - fiddle, guitar, background vocals
Philip Holm - double bass, background vocals

KLEZMER

I've played klezmer (Easter European jewish folk music) since 2013, when I joined Helsinki Klezmer Kapelye.

Since then I have studied the tradition in both master classes and with my bands. I'm a regular face in the Finnish klezmer scene and have toured schools with the quartet Vallila Klezmorim. Watch more klezmer videos below!

SWING & JAZZ MANOUCHE

Most of my time spent playing pre-bebop jazz is with the groups 67xNaked and Hot Jazz Oh La La. The former is a wild mix of old jazz, performance and spoken word, while the latter is deep-diving into the original style of Django Reinhardt.

Jimbino Vegan (right) at the Ermi Öö festival in Tarto, Estonia. Photo: Agnes Müürsepp

OTHER PROJECTS