“Ethno meets metal”
This side project of Waltari has released one CD called Channel Nordica (2000 EMI). The story of the co-operation of these two so different type of bands started out in the year 1992, when this young multi cross-over metal band from Finland, on a step of soon reaching some international success, got an idea of bringing the culture of Finland into the rock stages of Europe. At that time in Finland, apart from grunge and growing techno enthusiasm, there was a huge ethno boom going on inside the Finnish rock scene. Finnish ethno bands like Värttinä and harmonica player Maria Kalaniemi filled up the rock clubs like Tavastia in Helsinki easily many times a year. Angelit (formerly Angelin Tytöt) were one of these hip Finnish ethno groups.
In the middle of this local folk music boom Kärtsy got an idea to combine this Finnish ethno boom to their hip cross-over metal in Waltaris first techno influenced song that Kärtsy was creating at that time in the end of 1992, after their international success in Europe with the second album Torcha (and especially their crazy cover version of Madonnas Vogue, which had even got some radio play in Europe, being very rare at that time with any metal based band).
Waltari and Angelit met first time each other at a Finnish Independence anniversary party, were many different kinds of bands were playing . They shared the same backstage, and Kärtsy asked immediately after hearing them opening their voices before their show, whether these girls would like to guest star on their next album. Girls said yes, and the seeds for the very long lasting co-operation were sown.
Their common song So Fine on Waltari´s next album, which was even called after this tune, So Fine (1994), turned out to become a huge radio hit, also around Europe, and soon they found themselves playing together this song in many various festivals in Central Europe. The girls always used to join the band for the last song in the set , and soon they rehearsed some more tunes for stage to keep up this extraordinary spirit for some more numbers in the end of Waltari´s show.
Due to the success of the song Waltari and Angelit decided to build up a special “Ethno Meets Metal” tour for the Europeans, who were greedily longing for more and more of this very extraordinary combination. This tour kept on going every time the bands were free from their personal engagements more or less until the end of the decade, and in 1998 they even decided to go into a studio together to record the highlight numbers of this EMM live show. Channel Nordica was then soon released as their special co-operation CD. The last shows the bands did together at that time were the shows connecting to the release of the CD year 2000. After that Waltari decided to have a break after those constantly hectic 15 years, and therefore also this co-operation was frozen.
In 2008 the bands joined together for the first time in 8 years on stage again in Helsinki, when Waltari was having its record release party for their 2nd compilation album 2nd Decade In The Cradle, which includes 1 song from Channel Nordica cd, called System Odda Aigi.