Bill Evans – Everybody Digs Bill Evans (1959)

When you start exploring jazz of the 50s and 60s, it's quite easy to see who the superstars from that period were. You just look at the players on the albums and usually the players who appear on most well-known albums can be considered the superstars of jazz. Bill Evans is clearly one of them. In addition to his own albums, he has played piano on several other jazz superstars' albums. Everybody Digs Bill Evans is his second album as the band leader. At this point his best albums were still ahead of him, but this album showed already many signs that he was to become one of the best jazz pianists on the planet. As a rising jazz star it was probably not possible to get much higher praise than to get stars like Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley praise your talents in your album cover. The album cover might not be the most innovative, but it sure gives confidence in the quality of the record.

Ben Howard – Every Kingdom (2011)

When I had just moved to London, I found quite a few good folk artists that I hadn't heard of before. Many of those artists were just releasing their debut albums, maybe inspired by the success of Mumford & Sons. I was glad to see so many good singer-songwriters emerging at the time. However, there's one problem with many of these artists. If they gained recognition with their debut album, they more often than not got sucked into mainstream record labels and as a result their authentic acoustic sounds changed into awfully produced commercial sounds that usually included completely irrelevant electronic instruments as well. This is kind of what happened to Ben Howard on his later albums. This debut album of his is still a great folk album that deserved the buzz it got at the time of its release.

The Moody Blues – Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1971)

The Moody Blues is a strange band. I sometimes really like them and sometimes they seem really lame. I really liked the band as a teenager after having heard one album played by my father and after borrowing an extensive CD box set from the local library and copying it on minidisc. Then, for quite a few years afterwards, I thought Moody Blues was kind of lame. They sounded really old and outdated. Now that I'm listening to them years later, I can totally see what was so good about them and even if the sounds are a bit old, I truly enjoy their music. This album I bought on vinyl when I found it with a very affordable price in a record store in Helsinki. I haven't listened to this album that much since the purchase because quite soon after buying it, I moved to London and I don't have the album with me.

Gavin Clark & Toydrum – Evangelist (2015)

The English singer-songwriter Gavin Clark played in numerous bands during his career, including Unkle, Clayhill and Sunhouse. I'm not too familiar with those bands, but what I've heard from them, I can fairly securely say that none of those projects are as good as Evangelist, the last album he ever made. Clark died as a result of his alcoholism and Pablo Celements and James Griffin from Tyodrum and Unkle had to finish the album that was unfinished when Clark died. This album is a fantastic ode to Gavin Clark's career. It's filled with very sad and beautiful songs and at the same time, it has many songs with powerful angst and attitude. The black and white album cover with Clark with an accordion is as cool as the album itself. I can't name that many albums from last few years that would be as cool as this one.

Allo Darlin' – Europe (2012)

Today, this album by a London-based indie pop band seems very evidently like a political statement, but when you consider this album was actually released already in 2012, it's not quite as evident. Allo Darlin' is actually very un-political in their lyrics on this album and despite some references to EU politics, this album is mostly about everyday encounters on their European tour where they drove across the continent in a van. Then again, it seems to me like this albums is a manifesto for free movement in Europe. It tells numerous stories of different cities, memorable experiences and the sense of freedom of driving from country to country and feeling part of it all. I'm getting quite emotional now even just thinking about how my adopted home country is willingly trying to give up something this amazing. 

Various Artists – Europe House Presents: Europa Jazz (2010)

In 2012 I did my internship at the Finnish Institute in London. They are involved with societal and cultural exchange between Finland and UK and they've been involved in many interesting cultural projects. This has included various compilation albums of Finnish music that have been promoted here in UK. This album is not their project, but nevertheless, they were, I guess, partly promoting jazz collaboration between European countries and this album includes one Finnish song as well. Unfortunately I can't find the album cover anywhere. This is a compilation album of European jazz from 2010. There are very interesting songs on here. I find that jazz is one of the easiest international musical styles, since there are rarely vocals involved and the whole idea is to sound quite original, so stylistic differences don't surface that easily.

Glasvegas – EUPHORIC /// HEARTBREAK \\\ (2011)

I was first introduced to Glasvegas right after their debut album. Me and a few of my friends from university had these music nights where we would each bring an album the others may not know and we listened through those albums. Glasvegas' debut album was one of those albums brought by a friend of mine. I was immediately impressed by their melancholic and grandiloquent sound. A big bonus went to the lead singer James Allan's amazing Scottish accent. I also loved the band's mini-album A Snowflake Fell (And It Felt Like  a Kiss). Around the time I was really drawn to these kinds of larger than life sounds that could fill the stadiums. This album continues the large sounds filled with guitar walls and huge emotions, but some of the intimacy is gone. Nevertheless, this is quite a good album and I wasn't disappointed when I bought this one.

7Suns – Ethnomusicology, Vol. 1 (2011)

This is one of the most random albums in my collection. Me and a few of my friends went to see this band live in Brighton in midsummer 2012. None of us knew the band in advance, but we just wanted to see some live music and this is what was on offer. One of my friends had just moved to Brighton and the rest of us were visiting her from London. My memory of that night is that Brighton had a particularly varied and interesting night life for such a small city. This view has gotten more evidence over the years. Anyway, this band gave away some of these albums for free at their gig and that's how I ended up with this CD. I have to say that I haven't listened to this mini album that many times since, but it sounds pretty good now. Although, I definitely think this works much better played live.

Turin Brakes – Ether Song (2003)

Normally the album I first discover from a band, becomes the most important album to me. This is not the case with Turin Brakes. Ether Song was the first album I listened to from them, but I still think their debut album is the best one they ever released. Nevertheless, the second album Ether Song, is among their best albums. It took a slight departure from very acoustic and quiet debut album Optimist LP and introduced electric instruments and so-called, normal pop band instruments started to dominate the sounds. The most striking feature of the band is, however, the lead vocals of Olly Knights. His slightly nasal vocals are very recognisable and his range is quite amazing. I always thought most of the vocals were just double tracked on the album, but when I saw the band live, I realised that Gale Paridjanian's backing vocals actually are an essential part of the band's sound.

Why? – Eskimo Snow (2009)

I discovered the band Why? in 2008 in Japan when a local record shop was playing their album Alopecia. I immediately became interested in their music after hearing just a couple of songs while browsing albums in the shop. I ended up walking to the counter, asking what it was they were playing, and I bought the album then and there. Eskimo Snow was released about a year later and I was quite excited about the new album, because I had been really happy with my purchase. Alopecia had some rap sequences on it. I'm not that much into rap, but the album was melodic enough that it didn't bother me at all. In fact, I really liked that I had finally found an album with rap that I really liked. Eskimo Snow has moved even further away from the rap origins of the band and I could describe the style of the album as just indie rock with quite melodic approach.