Pekka Pohjola was the bassist of the Finnish group Wigwam when he made Harakka Bialoipokku, his second solo album, released by Love Records in 1974. A year later Virgin issued it in the UK as B The Magpie. Pohjola plays bass and keyboards and wrote all of the music, which is instrumental and arranged as a continuous story in seven parts.
The band is small at the core, with Tomi Parkkonen on drums, and Coste Apetrea adds guitar on one track. What sets the record apart is the horn section: Eero Koivistoinen, Pekka Pöyry and Seppo Paakkunainen on saxophones (Paakkunainen also on piccolo) and Bertil Lövgren on trumpet. Their charts give the pieces the feel of small orchestral jazz, while the bass lines and shifting meters keep it close to progressive rock. Compared with his more Zappa-flavoured debut, the writing here is more melodic and more personal.
Japanese CD reissue by Belle Antique in a mini LP sleeve with obi and an 8-page poster-style booklet of Japanese and English liner notes, SHM-CD, remastered.
