It’s early November and time for another contribution from our guest blogger Eduardo Alonso from Glue. It seems he’s gotten really in to time-traveling as he follows up on last month’s flashback to 1970 with a look on the immediate future and a selection of Finnish bands and artists we should all keep our eyes and ears on come 2010.

This time of the year we usually squeeze our brains trying to remember and list the best albums, artists and songs of the year, but because everyone will have his or her own favorites, I’ll look ahead instead and tell you what will be in my player next year. Some of them will probably be in my best of 2010 list.

Recently Rumba magazine and YleX radio created a joint list of the 12 hottest upcoming Finnish bands. Since these are very influential media when it comes to Finnish pop music, it cannot be ignored. Both Peter at ALL SCANDINAVIAN and I have told you about some of them, e.g. Delay Trees (photo), Jaakko & Jay, TV OFF and Le Corps Mince de Françoise, but there are more coming in a healthy variety of sounds that include indie beats, pop melodies, electro licks and rough metal. Here are some of my favorites:

The Wrecking Queens are the next offering from the Thee Ultra Bimboos / Pintandwefall school. They describe themselves as four hot chicks with a passion for music, smashing looks and highly energetic gigs. After a five-song EP and being signed to an important promotion agency, these girls are ready to take the step and record an album full of what they do best: Fun rock’n’roll songs.

Wedding Crashers are the funniest of the pack. It’s drinking time accelerated power pop with twisted lyrics about ‘The Three Musketenors’ or about how ‘My Life’s Been Flushed Down The Toilet’. They’re still unsigned, but the trio is taking time to record some tunes now. Oh, and these guys actually went to the same high school as Pintandwefall. Yes, Finland is a small country.

Electronic music is finally going somewhere in Helsinki and there are a bunch of uneasy minds experimenting with synths, zeros and ones, whilst building up a scene around a few clubs and festivals. It’s all about duos: Villa Nah, Zebra & Snake, TV OFF and Keramick & Lobo. To bridge the gap between electronic music and metal comes the trio Nightsatan that can be described as Kraftwerk playing Black Sabbath songs.

Finally we should also mention the post rock of On Volcano, the soulful pop of Magenta Skycode and indie rockers Cosmobile. These very good bands are likely to appear on this blog during 2010. So stay tuned!

Who do you think will make a mark on 2010?