Drops & Kicks

• Tracklist

22-Pistepirkko are easily one of Scandinavia's most eccentric and evocative pop acts. The band's sound and diabolical dynamic, remarkably consistent over the span of the 22-year career, is a luminous, surreal, guitar-based electro-pop and proto-garage-psychedelia blended with elements of acoustic folk and spaced-out bohemian blues-rock. 22-Pistepirkko are slightly weird, slightly childish, slightly psychedelic, slightly rockin', but mostly epic, genius, and supremely Finnish. 22-Pistepikko have just finished a new and upcoming studio album, 'Drops & Kicks'. It was produced together with Kalle Gustafsson of The Soundtrack Of Our Lives. Michael Ilbert (The Hives, Cardigans...) and John Hanlon, engineer/producer for Neil Young have been working on mixes. With a slow maturing process behind it 'Drops & Kicks' surprises by breaking the bond with earlier, machine-oriented albums. The sequencers and drum machines play an insignificant part. Instead there¹s sometimes rough, sometimes sensitive, but all in all quite raw trio playing, while their songwriting abilities just reached a new peak. 'Drops & Kicks' is full of potential hits. The funny Rat King; reminiscent of Wild Thing, has conquered the Swedish College radio list for weeks. This is a good sign indeed, for there are way more strong songs on the album (note: 7 more great tunes on the revised vinyl version)'Drops & Kicks' has almost everything that it takes to be a good rock album. It prefers stupidity to intelligence; it is angry, swinging, mean, ironic at one¹s own expense, tight and funny. It includes comic strip, bubble gum, boogie and angst. It has taken less to conquer the cover of NME!