Tabula Rasa (band)

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This article is about the 1970s finnish rock band, for the latin term, see tabula rasa; for other uses, see Tabula rasa (disambiguation).

Tabula Rasa was a major progressive rock group from Finland in the 1970s.

Tabula Rasa was founded at Kangasala in 1972. Founding members were Heikki Silvennoinen (guitar), Tapio Suominen (bass) and Asko Pakkanen (drums). The main influences were the prog-rock bands Jethro Tull and Tasavallan Presidentti. Later, Jarmo Sormunen (flute), Jukka Leppilampi (vocals), Jarno Sinisalo (piano) and Jukka Aronen (drums) also played in the band. Most of the songs were written by Silvennoinen. The lyricist was often Mikko Alatalo, a well known Finnish musician who was never an actual member of the band.

The band started to be well known in Finland when it became number two in "the best Finnish pop group" contest in 1972, and after it played as opener for another Finnish prog-rock band, Wigwam, in the same year.

The music of the band is typical prog rock, and resembles some of the recordings of Jethro Tull as flute has been given a strong role. Lyrics are sung in finnish. The band was later considered a major Finnish progressive rock group in 1970's, though it is overshadowed by Wigwam and Tasavallan Presidentti.

The band quit in 1977, when Aronen and Silvennoinen joined in Alatalo's group called Coitus Inc. Silvennoinen has stated that matters such as the decline of the popularity of progressive rock and the religious awakening of some group members contributed to the split of the group.

The most well known songs by the band are "Vuorellaistuja" from the first album and the A-side of the last single, "Rakastatko vielä kun on ilta".