Finnawelon – “Finnawelon”

Pete Moor has been making music for years, mostly guitar-based work, but Finnawelon is where he goes fully electronic, and the debut album is the kind of record that takes a few tracks to figure out what it’s doing, and then you kind of appreciate that it doesn’t fit neatly into one box.

The opening track “Disk Driver” is an 80s house number with a vocal sample that’s pure nostalgia. It’s a good entry point, light, fun, and it moves. And my favorites are “PowerDown”, and “Ignition (Mission From Mars)”. The closing track “Towers” is about corruption and the push for peace, and it doesn’t try to wrap things up with a neat bow.

What holds it all together is the spoken word side of things. Actors Huw Parmenter and Karen Hassan perform Pete’s original poetry and prose across the record, and it gives the album a texture you don’t hear that often in electronic music. His niece Izzy Moor handles vocals on lead single “Light,” recording from her home studio, and it fits the track well.

The whole thing was made over two years between Belfast and London, mostly on a laptop with a piano. Pete has talked about feeling both hopeful and frustrated about the state of the world, and that tension is audible. Give Finnawelon a follow on social media. There are hints of live shows coming later in 2026 and it’s worth keeping an eye on.