Interview with Tommi Sirkia (Haltya)

First of all, what is the meaning of the word "Haltya"? Haltya means Elf in Suomi. Actually more like a female spirit with wings. Haltya in Suomi is written with an ‘I’, but we tried to make it more "international" so we wrote it with a ‘Y’. Your last album was different than the previous one. Less "crazy" and more funky groovy (but yet very psy). What caused that change? PeLinPaLa was my first album which was the most crazy. It was more psy, not much trance. Haltya has always been about groove. Haltya made us think more about the people. Actually the album of Highpersonic Whomen made us realize what we wanted Haltya to be - more like a combination of psy with funky groove. Rumors say you're leaving to Brazil and opening a studio there? Why Brazil, which is considered to be one of the full on capitals? Well, I'm a drummer. Actually my father and sister are musicians so music & rhythm have been a big part of my life since I was a child. I've been recording in jazz bands for example, so it's only natural for me to move around and produce music, and Brazil has so much rhythm and sounds I want to explore and learn. I already have a studio there waiting for me. Another reason I'm moving there is because of the Israelis. Brazil is filled with Israeli sounds and I hope I will be able to make a change and make them hear some different kind of music. Do you think there's a change lately towards psy music? Is there? Everything has been explored - full on, progressive. I believe Goa will make a comeback. It's all about retro now. Retro Goa will be progressive. For me psy harmonics and all the Finnish underground music is the true psychedelic music. You played in Israel recently. What were your impressions of the Israeli crowd? Great! Israelis take their trance seriously. The gig in Israel was the best live gig we've played outside of Finland. Weird. It was a good surprise to see that the Israelis have evolved. I always saw the full on side. Every Israeli abroad talks about powerful music. Maybe this is the change I have noticed the most here in Israel. This is the Israel I always wanted to see! What amazes me is the freedom you guys feel at parties. I mean, because of the situation in Israel when people come to outdoor parties they feel so free, so relaxed. You have 2 other side projects – PeLinPaLa and Highpersonic Whomen. Can you tell us if there's a future to these projects? About PeLinPaLa, I've been negotiating about making a second album but nobody made me a serious offer up until now. I want to work with Exogenic Records because there I have artistic freedom. I think it's the best record label in the world. About Highpersonic Whomen there will be a follow up. The next album will be more full on because the last one was "psygressive". The last Highpersonic Whomen brought back psy to progressive. The upcoming album will be more scando full on. Highpersonic Whomen is a project where you make music like back in 1996. As I said it's all about retro. You have to accept rules and certain recipes. Highpersonic Whomen is for the recipe stuff. Haltya on the other hand is a project that breaks these rules and boundaries. How can you explain that this psy music is based in Finland and Australia? You also noticed the connection between Australia and Finland? I don't really know why, maybe because these two countries are so isolated. Finland is the most eastern European country and isolated from the center while Australia is a huge island isolated from the rest of the world. Australia has influenced the Finnish psytrance and vice versa, back and forth, back and forth. Actually dj Genke had a big influence in Finland. He was the first to introduce this music to the Finnish people. When he started playing this kind of music people were going like "wow, what the f***". Today he moved on to break bit, also because the Australians moved to break bit. Any comments you want to add / secrets you want to tell? Don't let your ego outgrow yourself. Oh and earthbong. It's a scando invention so of course it works.

Interview by Candy