Bio
Kimmo Pörsti is a Finnish musician, music producer and composer. Kimmo has played in over 70 releases overall; besides Finnish also in Italian, Spanish and French albums. 18 of the albums include his compositions and he has produced alone or together with other fellows over 40 of those releases. For the last 12 years Kimmo has also mixed and mastered all the Seacrest Oy releases.
As a kid, after five years of non-advancing piano lessons Kimmo was finally allowed to change to drums. Turning towards more challenging music happened almost by accident as Kimmo was a fan of Deep Purple and he was observing Ian Gillan and Roger Glover moving towards prog and fusion in their solo projects. Soon after that Kimmo took his ”Hullujussi” LP's to second hand store and exchanged them with ELP's albums – there was no turning back.
As a teenager Kimmo received invaluable guidance to the world of good music from Jari Uusikartano. Later on the work was carried on by Kimmo's mentor in music and recording/mixing, a Finnish prog legend Tommi Liuhala.
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Every now and then throughout the 80's Kimmo worked with Mika Syväniemi for the Finnish Broadcasting Company Yleisradio, playing and composing music for many TV programs. (Photo on the right)
With Kimmo's group Minea, a nationwide ”Starchase” -competition was won in 1986 - the first prize being a recording contract. The single was made and performed in televison but never released; the record company went into bankrupt sometime atferwards.
In the late 80's Kimmo was a member of a fusion/gospel group ”Jouko Kantola Band” in Helsinki – performing in venues like Finlandia Hall (Finlandia-Talo). That's where he met Mist Season's bass-player to be Keijo Hakala. After leaving the band Kimmo was invited to participate in band’s album ”Odottaja”- CD in 1991. Together with Jouko Kimmo also played live with Juhani Aaltonen (of Tasavallan Presidentti) in 1991.
Between 1990 – 1995, Kimmo was member of Rockport, which also had it's own analoque 16-track studio in Tampere, Finland.
Kimmo released his first solo-album, Maahinen: ”Ihmeellinen Iltapäivä” in 1997. The music of Maahinen has been heard in some Finnish television programs until the recent years.
After moving to Hämeenlinna, in 2004 it was time to form Mist Season, which relased three albums and participated in many tribute projects of Colossus / Musea and Mellow Records. Around the same time, Seacrest Oy was founded to release music by Mist Season (as well as other bands later on).
Kimmo recorded Progression's ”The Dream of Cecilia” in 2006/2007 and was asked to join the band soon afterwards. Progression played as an opening act for Billy Cobham in Vaasa, 2009. Before disbanding in 2010 Progression made another album ”Noxologic” but it was not completed and released until 2016. Through Progression Kimmo got to know Jan-Olof Strandberg, with whom he formed Paidarion in 2009.
Kimmo has taken part of some Jan-Olof's other projects – playing concerts with special guests like Michael Manring, James LoMenzo (Ozzy Osbourne, John Fogerty), Esa Kotilainen and Jukka Gustavson (Wigwam).
Kimmo got to know Marco Bernard through participating in Colossus tribute-projects. In 2009 Kimmo received a phone call from Marco as he asked if Kimmo could play drums for The Samurai of Prog for a an Italian tribute album. It has been an intense co-operation ever since.
Steve Unruh joined just a little afterwards to complete the core of The Samurai of Prog and stayed as member until 2023. The guest musicians such as Steve Hackett (Genesis), Jon Davison (Yes), Clive Nolan (Pendragon), Ton Scherpenzeel (Camel, Kayak) and Roine Stolt (The Flower Kings) have played important role in The Samurai of Prog’s albums. So far Samurai of Prog has recorded over 20 albums and received extensive international attention.
In the early 2020's it was time to form a new project combining folk music and medieval music with progressive rock: ”The Guildmaster” with Rafael Pacha, Marco Bernard and Ton Scherpenzeel (replaced later by Alessandro Di Benedetti). The Guildmaster's first album: ”The Knight and The Ghost” was released in November 2020, followed by ”Liber De Dictis” in 2023 and ”Gathering of Souls” in 2025.
In April 2020, Kimmo's second solo album, ”Wayfarer” was released with guests like Dave Bainbridge, Jose Medina and Jaime Rosas. Wayfarer was followed with ”Past and Present” the next year with guests like Ton Scherpenzeel and David Myers.
A close co-operation with the Spanish multi-instrumentalist Rafael Pacha has led to release two albums under the title Pacha & Pörsti, ”Views of The Inner World” (2022) and ”Sea of Mirrors” (2023). In Progarchives’ Progressive Rock Top Albums of the World list in 2023 Sea of Mirrors has been ranked between positions 1-3 with rating of 4.47 out of 5.
