Finnish band Poropetra have signed on with Open Grave Records for the North American release of their debut album, Sinihirwi. Poropetra features members, Juha Jyrkäs (throat-singing, 12-stringed kantele, distorted kantele-effects), Markus Ylikoski (guitar, backing vocals), Leo Herranen (bass, contrabass, backing vocals), Hittavainen (Korpiklaani) (violin, jouhikko, torupill, keyboards, mandoline, flutes and pipes, mouth harp, backing vocals), Lari Hammarberg (drums, percussions, backing vocals), Elsa Pardonen (vocals), and Nancy (vocals).

Poropetra is ancient Finnish and it means the same as Elk of Hiisi (Hiiden hirvi in Finnish) from the Finnish mythology. Elk is an old totem animal of Finno-Ugrian and Siberian peoples, thus it describes so well Poropetra’s unique ethnic fusion music, combining together Finno-Ugrian myths and legends, Finnic kantele- and runo-singing traditions, Tuvan throat-singing, world music, psychedelic rock, blues and heavy rock.

Poropetra was founded by Juha Jyrkäs in 2002. Kuuraparta and Hittavainen joined soon after. The first demo, “Poropetra”, was self-published in 2004. It represented an almost pure modern Finnish folk sound. After the demo, the band wanted to electrify the sound and bring in some more influences.

It took two years to record the new songs for Sinihirwi. After many long recording sessions, Poropetra’s debut album, Sinihirwi was self released in July of 2007. Now a little over a year since it’s original release, Sinihirwi will see it’s North American release this fall via Open Grave Records.