Kärtsy Hatakka, the leader and primus motor of the band Waltari , has become recognized as one of the most remarkable faces in the history of Finnish rock music. Waltari was the first Finnish band to start this well-known invasion of Finnish hard rock/metal music into Europe in early 90s. They signed a worldwide record deal with Roadrunner Records in 1992 and soon were one of the first Finnish rock bands to hit the European charts and stages in mid 90s. Besides Waltari Kärtsy, as a full time musician since 1991, has also had a lot of other remarkable musical engangements here and there in different fields of music, including a pioneering soundtrack work for a legendary Finnish computer game Max Payne ( link ) (parts 1 and 2). And now, as the newest project, he is continuing his solo artist career, which he already started some years back under a name K2, continuing it later with his other side project Wax-Real Time Orchestra.
If we count in the Max Payne games that have sold six million copies worldwide, Kärtsys contribution can be heard on seven million units sold in total. As a musical chameleon and an avid David Bowie fan, this secretly gothic composer has been interested in hard-hitting guitars as well as synthesizers throughout his entire life, with maintaining original rock-and-roll attitude without respect to any genre borders.The enthusiasm towards different fields of rock music has begun already at an early age through his family, and the musical influences, at least attitudewise, along with all the classical rock bands and artists of 60s and 70s were passionly absorbed to his head already in his childhood. However, from the first Punk/New Wave bands in late 70s-early 80s he then found his first personal musical innovators, which kicked him, along with his elder brother..s band, to put up his first own line-up, already at the age of 11, which included already his long term band mate in Waltari, Jariot Lehtinen.
As an 80s teenager Kärtsy then invented and developed his personal musical legacy in various bands, with combining this openminded attitude from old classic bands, and, on the other hand, the new sounds of his generation of the 80s..From this soup then developed the band Waltari in 1986, and, after 10 albums, is still going strong. The same attitude still keeps Kärtsy constantly searching for some new sounds and styles, his hunger of keeping rock music fresh is endless.
As a new challenge, Kärtsy has now formed a fresh solo line-up, with some Finnish pro musicians behind him, f.e.Janne Kärkkäinen (a former guitar player of Sunrise Avenue). Through the years with Waltari and other projects he has every now and then come up to the situations, where he has realized, that even this super large style spectre of metal/industrial/rock/punk/hip hop still hasn..t been able to feed all his musical visions, especially Waltari being nowadays more or less dealing with the hard rock/metal side of the music world. There has still remained a lot of ideas, which don..t fit in the current formulas. In brief, this solo project is about to be everything which the current Waltari is not. At the moment Kärtsy..s band is now starting to do the small club shows without any stress everywhere, as the slogan "we go everywhere they want us to go", playing interestingly versatile samples of all the different corners of his career so far, not only Waltari. And of course there are also lots of new songs especially made for this project, and naturally a record deal for this part of the career is also a future plan.These solo songs have then turned out to be, surprisingly, simple guitar rock songs.......so far:).
Complete Discography (in chrological order) :
1988
WALTARI
Waltari (maxiEP)
1989
Rap Your Body beat (Single)
1990
Mut Hei (maxiEP)
1991
Good God (Single)
Monk Punk (Album)
1992
Aika Tuulee (EP)
Torcha (Album)
1993
Pala Leipää (A compilation of Waltaris early singles and eps, incl.newly recorded old unreleased songs from the 80s)
1994
So Fine (Single)
So Fine (Album)
So Fine (remixSingle)
Misty Man (Single)
1995
Atmosfear/Feel (Single)
Big Bang (Album)
The Stage (Single)
CAT AND MOUSE
She Does Slip ("20th artist anniversary"-releasing, incl.very early home recordings with his brother in 1975 (!), plus some new recordings)
1996
WALTARI
Yeah Yeah Die Die- Death metal Symphony In Deep C (Album)
Move (Single)
1997
Space Avenue (Album)
Far Away (Single)
Blind Zone (Single)
1998
CAT AND MOUSE
Around And Round (miniAlbum)
WALTARI
Decade (The best of-compilation incl.some new songs and unreleased material)
Walkin..In The Neon (Single)
Walkin..In The Neon (remixSingle)
1999
Every Bad Day (Single)
Radium Round (Album)
Atom Angel (Single)
2000
K2
Lights Go Wild (1st solo single)
WALTARI+ANGELIT
Channel Nordica (Album)
So Fine 2000 (Single)
2001
MAX PAYNE 1 soundtrack (with Kimmo Kajasto) (Pc Game)
K2
Get On Top (Single)
WALTARI
Back To Persepolis (EP)
2003
MAX PAYNE 2 soundtrack (with Kimmo Kajasto) (Pc game)
KÄRTSY HATAKKA
Akseli Ja Eelo (1st solo album, music for a theatre piece)
WALTARI
Life Without Love (Single)
2004
Rare Species (Album)
2005
Rare Species Alive (DVD)
Not Enough (Single)
Blood Sample (Album)
2006
Early Years (20th anniversary releasing incl.remastered Monk Punk album and Pala leipää-compilation, with some incl.newly recorded old unreleased songs from the 80s)
WAX-REAL TIME ORCHESTRA
Smalltown Boy (Single)
WALTARI
2007
Release Date (Album)
2008
2nd Decade In The Cradle (compilation of the last Waltari decade with some bonus tracks)
Kärtsy..s contribution can also be heard f.e.on the following songs/releasings:
WALTARI
-Dawning Of Doom (Die Krupps: The Final Remixes CD 1994)
-Rasnavitsnavia (Idiootikeskosia EP 1992)
-Mitä Sinä Teet Jos Nään (Idiootikeskosia 2 EP 1994)
SOLO:
-Sky..s The Limit (Bomfunk Mc..s:In Stereo CD 1999)
-Seasons In The Sun (Corporal Punishment: Into The Nerve Of Pain CD 1994)
-Bavaria (Ostara: Kingdom Gone CD 2002)
-Nightmare Machines, Diva da Sade, Does The Truth Make Free?, Ultima Thule, Black Spring (Ostara: Ultima Thule CD 2004)
-Ballad 666 (Cato Canari: Baby I Love You So remixAlbum 2007)
-Hummani Hey (Sir Elwwodin Hiljaiset Värit: Ilta Illan Jälkeen CD 2002)
-I.I.I (remix with Janne Immonen) (Remember Twilight: Das Tolle Mensch CD 2006)
-"Bonus Track" (Koneveljet. Brothers In Machine CD 2002)
-Cinely (Wohnout: Polib Si Dedu CD 2006)
-Sea Life Helsinki (with Kimmo Kajasto) (Wallpapermusic 2003)
First official solo album coming out 2010!