I nearly deleted an email I received yesterday because I initially thought it was spam. Normally when the subject comes in as “[your-subject]” sent via Watkykjy’s online mailing form, the body of the email usually starts off along the lines of “First off, apologies for contacting you in English, my Dutch skills aren’t that great.” – overseas companies trying to sell me some shit. Locally it is usually some PR companies (I am looking at you, Cape Town) asking for free publicity because their “client doesn’t have budget”. The client is usually some big fucking company trying to score freebies. They too, can fuck off…

For some reason (probably morbid curiosity or boredom) I decided to give this email from Helsinki, Finland a quick read over and I am fucking glad that I did. It was from Jere Leskinen, a guy who started managing this totally unknown Finnish band about a month ago.

They only have three songs available for now, only have 800 fans on Facebook, and have three gigs lined up around their home town. They are currently working on an EP as well as a full length album. This could be the next undiscovered gem and I am pretty sure that whichever big record label picks up on this first, could turn this talented trio into something massive. I have a similar feeling about these guys that I had about Die Antwoord back in 2008. Something just tells me these guys are destined for something big, because this genre of music is buzzing fucking hard right now.

Feels is an electro-pop group formed by singer and songwriter Sofi Meronen, keyboardist Mikael Myrskog and producer (not really sure what they mean by that) Jooel Jons. They describe their music as epic, gripping and toned with northern melancholy. Scandinavian vibes. If that all sounds a bit unfamiliar to you, at least you’ll know the term ‘eletro-pop’. According to Jere the response in Finland has been “pretty nice” with both national and local radio play for both of their songs. Finland being a country with a population of just over 5 million people, not half bad but in South African terms it is almost a third of Gauteng’s population.

What I really like about these guys is that they seem al jacked up and ready to go. They are a brand new outfit but already have two music videos produced to accompany two of their three songs. And it’s fucking well produced. The word “cinematic” comes to mind. It actually just makes me really want to visit that part of Europe and lock myself up in a wooden cabin somewhere with my chick, put on this band’s music and see what happens.

I’ve sent their music to some of my friends to listen to and give me their opinions. One of them was Gareth Wilson (part owner of The Goodluck Bar in Joburg and Oppikoppi’s talent buyer) and he also got very excited: “So refreshing to hear a band that captures my attention from the first listen. Within the first few bars I was hooked. Expect this band to blow up very soon!”

Myself and Gareth have now decided to try our very best to bring them over to South Africa for a tour as soon as we can and as soon as they are willing and ready. So all you venue owners and festival organisers, you better get in contact with us before Feels go full-tilt and we only get to see them gracing South African shores with Roxette-like reunions 30 years from now, just because you didn’t pay attention today…

Website: www.feelsfeels.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thisisfeels
Support them: https://soundcloud.com/feelsfeels

Their music videos:

Photos of the band: