After three years of sitting and thinking I have finally managed to put together an album of Irish traditional dance tunes and old Finnish hymn airs on the wooden flute. The combination might appear odd to somebody, but I feel the two work together quite nicely. I think Harry Bradley puts it well in the foreword:
On listening to this CD you might justifiably ask yourself what do Finnish folk hymns and Irish folk dance music have in common? Well, to my mind, the answer in this case is clearly Markus Asunta. — That Markus mixes Irish folk music with other traditions known to him will make perfect sense to anyone who just plays the music they love regardless of what it is or where it came from; well leave it to others make distinctions and impose borders on our wonderful world of sounds.
The album, titled Kuin unta ja varjoa (Like Dream and Shadow), is currently available through Custy’s in Ennis and as mp3 through the Finnish online store TheGround (direct link: http://www.theground.com/catalog/artist.php?manufacturers_id=19947&language=en ). You can also have a listen of three full tracks at my MySpace (www.myspace.com/asuntamarkus/). Never mind the introductory text at TheGround site, it was quickly copied from MySpace and is certainly subject to change.
You’re welcome. Thank ye for the encouraging words.
For those of ye wanting to hear more, it’s only a few clicks away. The entire album can be bought as mp3 through theground.com or as an actual, physical CD through Custy’s (although they still haven’t got it on the website).
Markus, have you considered selling your CD on http://cdbaby.com/ ? It would make it much more available to the Western market, and all could listen to the clips. Just a thought-might do well for you too.
Those of us still in the cave with dial-up connections, don’t really have the option of the MP3 downloads.
Would Philippe Varlet of Celtic Grooves stock your CD, Markus? This would provide a North American outlet for you… and would save me ordering it through Custy’s…
That’s sort of why I suggested CDbaby-and Celtic Grooves doesn’t provide sound samples, doesn’t have a secure shopping cart, and read this about their shipping charges!:
With the price of many CD’s now, I really don’t want to spend $7.50 on shipping/handling to get a new one, that’s for sure!
If it were up to me, myself & I only, I’d probably go for cdbaby. My tiny label, however has expressed serious doubts about money getting through from Americay. American cheques don’t cash tht easily on this side of the pond, especially not up here in the North.. But we’ll try to figure something out.
Meanwhile, I recommend Custy’s. TheGround, btw, has short clips available of all tracks as well, I think.
I’ll be keeping ye posted as availability improves.
Hmm, well, that’s interesting, but I hope it’s not so true-cashing a check and depositing one may be a different thing-I do hope you could work it out with CDBaby, since it does reach a lot of people here in North America and beyond too.
I went to TheGround as suggested, and the clips aren’t available-it says album not found. Just so you know, Markus. Here’s the link, in case it clears up and others can hear it:
Unfortunately, sending payment to Finland could meet some obstacles.
For instance, personal checks, etc., as drawn on foreign banks, generally are not accepted by banks in Finland.
Commercial bank checks, international money orders and wire transfers, however, generally are accepted by banks in Finland, provided they are issued in Euros, but, a person sending a bank check generally pays a fee to have the check issued, and then the receiving party in Finland could be subject to a fee to deposit that same check in a Finnish bank, in effect as a fee on each end of the transaction. For a large transaction, perhaps such added costs could be negligible, but for something like a CD, ouch!
Cork pretty much summed the situation up. PayPal is an option, but getting the funds from PayPal account to the real world isn’t costless either. If this were a self-released thing, I could of course just spend whatever I get on ordering stuff online, but now that we have a label involved… anyways, as said earier, I’ll keep on investigating the options and let ye know.
As for TheGround, there seems to be something wrong with the samples. It’ll hopefully be fixed during next week, preferably sooner than later.
Several months ago I ordered a book from Stockmann’s, and by the time the book was delivered to my address in the US, the total of the shipping and transaction fees alone amounted to more than the price of the book!
Niin, when it comes to smaller items, importing products from Finland can be very expensive.
Then again, and through a major US book importer, I once ordered a complete set (of six volumes) of Finland’s main dictionary, Nykysuomen sanakirja, and my final cost was ~ 800 USD.
I don’t think PayPal is the best way to go-they seem to use an inflated conversion rate when processesing an order in different currencies, so to use them should probably be a last resort.
I doubt credit card companies charge as much, but I could be wrong-though dealing with one account such as your record company would have with CDbaby, for example, might be different than individual transactions, that Cork is referring to (and importing to the USA).
So, I still hold out some hope for a North American distributer, but I know your record label has to approve it first. I’ll keep checking TheGround for the sound samples, thanks Markus.
Good luck to you, and thanks for opening my ears to your music!
The sound samples at TheGround finally work, and are accessible from my MySpace as well.
I can’t seem to get the embedded buy now -button at my MySpace to work, however.
If anyone who visits TheGround to give the samples a listen and perhaps even buy the album, it would be grand if you could use the BandRank buttons and/or write customer reviews. The BandRank is especially important, as TheGround lists albums and artists according to the ranking instead of i.e. alphabetical order.
For those who have purchased the mp3 version, I would be more than happy to email the sleeve booklets and stuff as PDF. Just drop me a PM. The lurking music critics out there can also PM me to sort out how you could listen to the whole album.
That was very nice, but Valitan vaivojani is Lovely!!! 
The entire album can be bought as mp3 through 