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Commented KORPIKLAANI vocalist Jonne Järvelä: "On the album cover, our band mascot Vaari represents Väinämöinen, who is one of the main characters in the Finnish national epic 'Kalevala'.

"As most of the lyrics on 'Manala' are based on the 'Kalevala', Jan Yrlund decided to draw his inspiration for the cover artwork from the beautiful but yet brutal depiction of the underworld in Finnish mythology."

I have decided to set my goals elsewhere, as a result of which Korpiklaani will go on without me from now on. Korpiklaani was a prominent part of my life for long, but after these eight and a half years I played in the band I have come to realize that I currently want to experience and pursue something else. Accordion has never been my primary instrument. I also understood that performing in front of an audience is not exactly what I hugely enjoy. Strange as it sounds, what I most want from making music nowadays is playing guitar at home. That is what I find relaxing and free of stress. Some people love touring, but because I am a very private person I found living and traveling on the tour bus for four weeks in a row a little challenging. Nevertheless, I got to experience many things I am deeply grateful for and want to thank all Korpiklaani's listeners, fellow bands, crew members and our staff who enabled all of this. I am glad that the band has now found a truly professional accordionist to take the place of me to take care of the future tours and shows as planned. I wish everyone well. The journey has just begun.

Finnish Folk-Metal-superstars KORPIKLAANI are pleased to announce that they have inked a new deal with Nuclear Blast for the release of their upcoming new album entitled »Noita«, which is set for a release in May 2015.

»Noita«, has been recorded at Petrax Studio with Aksu Hanttu handling production, recording and mixing again. It will also be the first album to feature new accordion player Sami Perttula, who has been playing a very active role in the folk arrangements along with Fiddler Tuomas Rounakari.

Commented bassplayer Jarkko Aaltonen: ““Noita” in the traditional Finnish meaning is different than what people associate it with nowadays. “Noita” is a person with wider knowledge and understanding of the nature and who also was believed to possess paranormal or unnatural abilities. These people were often also referred to as “Tietäjä”, that exactly means someone with wider knowledge and understanding of pretty much everything. Native American medicine man is pretty much the same thing or actually all the different types of Shamans of the primitive peoples are the same thing. “Noita” is someone that you turn to when you need help of some kind. Finnish “Noita” had the ability to heal, just like their North American counterparts. They were very respected members of the society. Only later Christianity changed the word to mean something negative since those people were considered rivals by the church. Even in Finland this turned into a Witchhunt (=noitavaino) every now and then. Anyway, most people using Google Translate or similar will find the word “Witch” and will probably get a bit wrong idea of the meaning, since most will probably connect it with the black sabbaths, devil marks and such, when a way more correct translation would probably be medicine man or Shaman.”

»Notia« will also be the first KORPIKLAANI-album featuring new accordionist Sami Pertulla, he comments: “Previously the KORPIKLAANI albums were played with a piano-accordion and now I play with a traditional button-accordion which was more widely used in Finland anyways. In the arrangements you can hear more tonal harmonies and folky accompaniments combined to the power-chords than before. It actually boosts up the uplifting feel of our music.”

Violinist Toumas Rounakari also comments: “This album has more violin solos than ever before. Violin is more in the role of a lead-guitar now just as Jonne had originally intended it to be.”

And vocalist Jonne Järvelä concludes: “We have finally managed to create the balance between folk and metal in the way I’ve always dreamt it to be. Thanks to Sami’s arrangements and Tuomas’s crazy shredding of the violin.”