Kristina Bruuk: Between Heaven and Helsinki
Kalio Church, front cover of The Perambulator’s forthcoming novel Should we Meet at the Crossroads, Keep Walking. Cover artwork: John Holten. Cover art photo: Kevin Pollard.
Kristina Bruuk took her own life on the 31st of December 1999. At the time she was living in Naples, after having moved from her home city of Helsinki some months earlier. Her suicide note was a hand written memoir of no less than 100,000 words.
Kristina Bruuk had been a Finnish singer songwriter. In her early 20s she had been part of the thriving Helsinki scene in the mid 60s, ‘dating’ numerous of the rock musicians, poets and artists of the era. Her own attempts at the time to make any artistic impression seemed to flounder. Peter Laakkonen, the now legendary Finnish rock star, financed Kristina Bruuk to make a number of recordings. Some of these were released a 7” 45s, but all failed critically and commercially. After the Helsinki scene stagnated and collapsed she moved to Paris in time for the riots of ’68. From there she moved to Barcelona in the early 70s and onto Oporto in Portugal. There were various other European cities she lived in for short periods. By the late 1990s she was living in Berlin. She was there when the Wall came down.
With each new city she would keep writing both poetry and prose and make a living in whatever way she could. But her various addictions and abusive relationships seemed to have a habit of always catching up with her.
By the late 1980s a new scene had begun to blossom in Helsinki. Within this scene the now impossibly rare Kristina Bruuk singles from the late 60s, had become the ultimate collectable records. They were the touchstones for the new young bohemians. By this time no one in Helsinki had any idea of the where abouts of Kristina Bruuk. Most assumed she was long dead. Some Helsinki bands even started to cover her songs. One of these bands being Dracula’s Daughter, an all female four-piece indie rock band. Dracula’s Daughter successfully tracked her down in Berlin and invited her to return to Finland and sing on some of their own recordings. One of these was a song called Candy. This was subsequently released as a single on the Finish label Kalevala. The underground success of this record then led to the Kalevala label signing Kristina Bruuk to write and record her own album.
Although the album was recorded, Kristina Bruuk is said to have fallen out with not only all the musicians on the sessions, but with Hannu Puttonen, the boss of the record label. He had taken it upon himself to pay for her to go into rehab and have a therapy crash course. She walked out of both of these within days of starting. All plans to release the album were shelved, and Kristina Bruuk soon left Helsinki for the last time, heading for Italy and another ‘new’ life.
That was one version of history.
There is another.
Bill Drummond
Easter Sunday, 2016
(an excerpt from Bill’s original sleeve notes to Between Heaven and Helsinki)
Between Heaven & Helsinki by Kristina Bruuk was recorded in Helsinki in 1997 for Kalevala Recordings, it might never be released.
In 2012 Don McCracken hung out with Leonid Paukku. In 2013 he created his Perambulator alter ego. In 2014 he first saw Nightbird perform. In 2015 he began to construct the Helsinki Stone Circle sculpture, the same year he found the long-lost Kristina Bruuk album Between Heaven and Helsinki by tracking down the sound engineer. In 2016 he started to write a short novella that incorporated all of the above. By 2017 it was clear that this was a novel. In 2018 he hardly met any friends. In 2019 he found out how it all ended. In 2020 he offered the finished book to Paul Hawkins at Hesterglock Press.
The book will be released by Hesterglock Press on Mar 12 2021.
Come back next week for an excerpt. Mercurius and Hersterglock Press are excited. And so, probably, should you.
Check with Hesterglock Press’s website for more details.
After reading the novel, Bill Drummond wrote a forty second play: The Glorified Walking Stick, which features Kristina Bruuk. You can read The Glorified Walking Stick by clicking HERE.
Kristina Bruuk is an imagined poet and artist. She has been imagined by several generations of loner women scattered across Europe.