Röykkä (10th Anniversary), by Alex Siegel

Röykkä (10th Anniversary) by Alex Siegel, released 01 November 2023 1. Easy 2. Run Home 3. Hope You'll Be 4. Good Leg 5. Hanging on a Star 6. Girl 7. Summer Tune 8. Quiet King 9. Stronger Than Love 10 years ago I arrived in Eastern Europe looking for my roots, looking for adventure. In a hostel in Moscow I met Matti, a Finnish guy a little older than me, who heard me playing guitar and came over to me. What song was I playing? It was Summer Tune, one of my own. We got to talking and he invited me to visit him in Finland. About a month later, I did. We recorded Summer Tune at his house, in the studio up in the attic filled with instruments from the 70’s, vintage synthesizers, a real Mellotron, and microphones he had built himself. The recording sounded special, like something I’d heard in a dream. After some days I went on to Ukraine, a reverse migration to Kyiv where my family had long ago left the shtetl, and then to a small rural village called Zoziv where my friend Jackie was stationed in the peace corps. I spent a couple weeks there, playing soccer with the local kids, running through sunflower fields, playing chess and cooking apple pies and shakshuka. I wrote Good Leg, Run Home and Quiet King there. We did a concert for everyone at the restaurant, the only one in town, and got written up in the local paper. It was August 2013. No one knew at the time that the whole peace corps would soon be evacuated from Ukraine. I returned to Finland, to Matti’s house in Röykkä, where we recorded music late into the evenings. When I hear the music we made, it brings me right back to that time, to the shortening days and winding country roads all covered in golden autumn leaves. Everything I was thinking and feeling then. I’m so glad I have this time capsule to share with the world again.