Burning Hearts

Finnish indie pop stalwarts Jessika Rapo (vocalist for Le Futur Pompiste) and Henry Ojala (ex-drummer for Cats on Fire) teamed up to form the shambly, synthy duo Burning Hearts in 2006. Burning Hearts’ debut full-length, Aboa Sleeping, was released on Shelflife in early 2009. Aboa Sleeping received a warm welcome and made it to the top albums of 2009 on many music blogs. Rapo and Ojala followed up the album’s release with a passel of live shows in Hamburg, Berlin, Stockholm and New York City.

After releasing two singles in 2010, “Night Animal” (featuring A peasant’s dream Jori Hulkkonen remix) and a cover of Arthur Russell’s “The Letter”, the duo decamped to the Finnish countryside in Ostrobothnia and recorded a four song EP, Into the Wilderness, which was issued by Shelflife in June of 2011. The video for title track “Into the Wilderness”, based on a documentary about Alaskan grizzly bears, spread quickly over the blogosphere receiving a most warming welcome. The song was featured as mp3 and video of the day on spinner.com, and received several reviews giving praise to the EP. In July Burning Hearts was signed by Finnish Solina records who, together with Shelflife will release the forthcoming album.

At the moment, BH is working on their second long play record, Extinctions and getting prepared for some live shows in the Nordic cultural capitals. Extinctions will be released in Europe by Solina Records on February 1st an din the US by Shelflife on February 7th.