Goodnight Monsters

Goodnight Monsters are a Finnish indie pop affair whose sunny harmonies and cute-as-pie sensibilities nod to This Is Ivy League, Tullycraft, and the Bicycles. The group began as a collaboration between Valtteri Virtanen and Matti Jasu, who started making recordings together in 2004. Virtanen and Jasu recruited bassist Markus Jalonen and drummer Kece the following summer in order to round out the group's live sound, and Goodnight Monsters got to work playing a number of shows in and around Turku, Finland. Their debut album, The Brain That Wouldn't Die, was released on the Finland-based label Bone Voyage Recording Company before the year was out. Launched by the critical buzz surrounding that album, Goodnight Monsters embarked on a small European tour in 2006. Several drummers came and went that year; Kece split with the group while it was on tour and was replaced by Juha Kiskonen, who was in turn replaced a few months later by Jussi Rantanen. Goodnight Monsters' second full-length album, Summer Challenge, was released in the summer of 2008.