Judge Bone

Judge Bone aka Tuomari Nurmio, though he is a new face to the world at large, in Finland he is a national figure highly respected by several generations. In Finland he’s been granted several musical and lyrical prizes and his gigs are attended by young rock people as well as by middle-aged blues, country and folk freaks.

Not counting compilations, he has so far made 17 albums in Finland. All of them, except two, are in Finnish, and they cover a lot of stylistic ground, from lightly country twanging, over rockin affairs to the Balkans with horns and cellos. Many of them are solid classics in Finland.

Bone Voyage wanted to put a spot on the raw side of the man. So we've asked him to record this english sung album, due that people outside of Finland could have a chance to explore him.

The new album is the almost solo, live-in-the-garage recorded Big Bear’s Gate that reaches from the chilling Siberian deep blues (Big Bear’s Gate, Down To The Cold, Cold Ground, Fare Thee Well) and ancient Scottish murder ballad (actually Hande’s first ever composition to traditional Celtic words) of Bonnie George Campbell to the totally wreckless rock mayhem of You Hate Me & My Stetson Hat, 17 and In Misery, Train, Train, Train and 15 000 Heads. One could call them also Americana on acid. The fast songs feature the crunch-funk drumming of the honorable Judge’s right hand man, Doc Hill, who really is a medical doctor on top of being a stimulatingly idiosyncratic percussionist.

Vocally Judge Bone is a healing mediator between Folk, Blues and Punk, reaching out for the ghosts of Blind Willie McTell, Hank Williams Sr. and Hiski Salomaan, accompanying himself with a guitar sound like nobody else. Throughout the album he uses only one axe, a unique custom-made box-guitar, though it’s hard to believe.