FINRG is Finland based record label and event organizer. It’s been one of the leading source of harder edge of electronic music for the last 20 years now.
FINRG’s ethos is based on Finnish national epic Kalevala, which is the driving force to describe the dark and cold feel of the music and artists we represent.
The early years
FINRG’s story starts at 2001 when DJ Karri K released his dj mix simply titled ”FINRG”. Karri have had vision about first 100% Finnish Hard Dance label and soon he told about his vision to Carbon Based guys and DJ Nemes. Soon after that, things started to roll and ”FINRG001 : Carbon Based – Kraateri / Karri K & DFG – Be quiet” was out in 2002. The release was noted in and reviewed all around the world.
2003 started an event productions operations when FINRG Crew did a room for legendary Koneisto Festival at 26.7.2003. The night was a full success and scorching heatwave made venue yet even hotter than sauna. At this point, it was sure that FINRG is a new kind of phenomena and fresh arctic breeze to finnish electronic music scene.
After the Koneisto event, it was also sure, that Carbon Based and DJ RX joined the FINRG operations full scale. Karri K and Nemes left in a background and later they both focused in other things and leaved the FINRG in good terms and standing friendship.
More artists like Alek Száhala, Pain on Creation, DJ Proteus, Nomic, Re-Form joined the unholy troops of Viking Death Freeform. Many of FINRG artists toured overseas in Australia, USA, United Kingdom as well as in Finland. Years 2004-2007 were truly a golden era of Finnish Hard Dance. International buzz was also present and ravers outside Finland found FINRG sound melancholic, dark and raw, just like typical Finnish mentality.
By that time, most of the music was still released as vinyl, yet as a format it is very unpleasant in terms of size, weight and manufacturing costs. Alongside publishing, FINRG started a web store with mp3s, vinyl, imported music and merchandise products. The shop was a great success but it was never intended to be FINRG’s main business.
DJ Swoosh joined back in 2006 with fresh ideas and energy to share. Shortly after that, the Hybridize sub label was born. Hybridize was more into harder trance than its bigger brother, which concentrated on Freeform. ”Younger artists” like Substanced, Grimsoul and Sam One were the trendsetters of Hybridize, and it soon became a well known part of FINRG all over the world. At the same time, FINRG’s business model changed to pinpoint sharing, rather than selling, music.
Events
At the very beginning, it was decided that events would be a big part of FINRG. It was clear that whatever FINRG events would be, they’d be top quality productions with interesting artists in well established venues.
The first FINRG Tour back in 2003 included three events. It was also the first time when the FINRG Collective was introduced.
In 2004, there were 5 events including Turku, Tampere and Lahti, and FINRG artists became more and more popular.
2005 was the year of the ”Comminatio Arctica” tour and it finally blew the bank! The main event held on the eve of independence day in Diva, Lahti was sold out and afterwards it was described as the best hard dance event of 2005 in Finland.
2006 was the year of the ”Barbwire Apocalypse tour”. FINRG did it again with events in Helsinki (a co-operation with Säde), Lahti, Turku and Tampere bringing top names of the international hard dance scene including Guld (JP), Ephexis (UK), Clerics of Anarchy (AUS) and Eryk Orpehus (UK) to name a few.
2007 was the year of the Hakkapeliitta hard dance collection and a tour with the Nu Energy dudes in Helsinki and (yet again) sold out event in Lahti.
In 2008 FINRG held a trademark eve of independence day event in Helsinki with the FINRG and Hybridize Collectives and it was also one of the main events of the Finnish hard dance scene in 2008.
2012 FINRG did a full scale one off event at Senssi, Lahti. The night was pure Freeform Extravaganza with international guests such as Thumpa (UK), Solution (UK), Heathen (SWE), B.R.K (ITA) and Plasma Dancer (JP). There was also a biggest FINRG collective performance with almost every FINRG artist in a row. Event was still sold out after few years of silence and it was the great prove that fans had not forgotten.
2012 was also the end of the ”First Wave” of FINRG. After that Substanced & gang stepped in the head honcho’s shoes and started to run the label and event production towards to current situation.
FINRG Today
During the pandemic, All active FINRG members gathered around to discuss about the future endeavours of the label.
After pandemic had seized all operations of upcoming events, FINRG felt its a good time to update the label and its active members to adapt into the new age of the electronic music.
The FINRG came up with an idea to manifest a new breed of music styles onto their catalogue with Substanced taking a step back and letting Decion get on point of managing the labels future battle plans. For those who doesn’t know, Decion has been following FINRG Recordings more than a half of his lifetime and saw himself as the leading voice of the label so granting
a title like this was considered a win-win for both FINRG and Decion.
Decion had seen FINRG in need of new blood and new styles of music for a while now amid the ever-changing sound and culture of the world, so FINRG decided to load its arsenal in addition to Freeform and Hard NRG with tougher techno, EBM and Psy trance with Hard trance back on board, too.
In order for the new label-division to become reality, FINRG recruited a dark techno ambassador hailing from the north of Finland, Oulu: Tribos also known as Andy F, to maintain the techno/ebm/acid
section of the label.
It was also time to blow the dust off from the FINRG Hybridize sublabel and load its magazines with fresh underground psy/hard/trance music while releasing all the ’classic’ FINRG sound on a very respected way towards its roots under the name: FINRG Legacy.
Even though the industry has been exploded into a whole new level during the years and a new, bigger concepts has emerged on the ever evolving scene, FINRG prevails as a label, event organizer, and one of the champions of the harder edge of electronic music. With dedication to throwing unforgettable parties and releasing amazing music, there’s no doubt that the FINRG legacy will endure for years to come!