Inner Sleeve: Sami Sänpäkkilä

Pekka Streng – Kesämaa (Love Records 1972)
Artwork by Sonja Streng

Pekka Streng’s Kesämaa is an album that has had an enormous influence on me. It’s inside of me in a way that normally only loved ones are: the music, the lyrics and the cover feel like family.

I first saw the cover in the mid-1990s at a record fair. My friend Laura bought the LP for 80 Finnish Marks. That was a pretty steep price by our student standards and I thought that it was way too much. But I still remember being somehow overwhelmed by the cover. It had an effect on me that only a few artworks have had to date. I didn’t hear the music until a few years later. I managed to track down a copy of the CD, as the vinyl LP is really rare. On the cover there is an old man with a white beard kneeling down. He’s surrounded by flowers and trees and animals hanging around him, or rather hanging with him. To me, this scene symbolises the essence of life, the calm and peaceful acceptance of everything. The old man’s cane is on the ground, and he looks content and at peace. You cannot tell where the man ends and the nature and the animals begin. It shows you that everything is connected. Love and respect yourself, and you will learn to give and there will be no need to take. It told me you must change the world from within yourself. You will grow old and your friends will too. But you can do it together. It goes beyond religion. The most important thing is that this album gave me a lot. And I need to give something back.

I’ve ended numerous compilation tapes with the last song on the album, “Mutta Minä Lähden”, a lullaby that sounds like snow falling on your tongue – extremely fragile. There have been very few occasions when I haven’t played “Puutarhassa”, a track with a really jazzy Rhodes line and an amazing acoustic folky groove, as part of my DJ sets. Years ago, I used to cycle home with my then girlfriend and we would sing “...Ja Tuittu Ruusut Sai”, my favourite singalong after Syd Barrett’s “Bike”. We sang it a hundred times, me cycling and she on the back with her hands around my waist. I’ve danced crazily to these songs with my closest friends. Countless after-parties have ended with this album. Kesämaa works both as a party album and as a mellow afterhours chillout record, depending on your mood. Not many albums achieve this. In its own reality, each of the songs feels like a planet, the albums are the galaxies and Pekka Streng is the universe. Inside the albums he made his own rules and portrayed a world that is complex but very easy to read and dive into.

The album title Kesämaa translates as The Summerland. It’s a name given by some earthbased religions to the afterlife. I didn’t know this until my friend Jan told me after I showed him this piece. Wikipedia says about the Summerland: “As the name suggests, it is often envisaged as a place of beauty and peace, where everything people hold close to their hearts is preserved in its fullest beauty for eternity.” I think Pekka Streng has definitely captured something on this album as a whole that will stay in my heart forever.

I don’t know much about Pekka Streng and I’ve never made an effort to find out. His music has always told me everything I’ve needed to know. It also seems that that’s the way he wanted it. Streng only gave one or two interviews during his lifetime. He made two albums before he died of cancer at the very young age of 26 in 1975 – the same year I was born. Unlike the man on the album cover, Streng never grew old. But I’m sure he was good friends with animals.

Sami Sänpäkkilä makes music under the name Es and is the head of Fonal Records.