Hanna Zwart Muovipussi in the Spiegeltent

Under the spell of a plastic bag

On Saturday evening, a packed spiegeltent was under the spell of Muovipussi.

With a mixture of shudder and ecstasy – a rare combination of emotions – Heerlen witnessed Milla Lahtinen, Niklas Blomberg and Heidi Finnberg, a trio better known as Muovipussi (Finnish for ‘plastic bag’). Nothing I write here really does justice to this maximalist band – a blend of punk, hip-hop, noise and hyperpop. It was a musical and visual bloodbath. Microphones were shoved down throats until the performers were retching, and the audience was pelted with a screeching blue handbag.

One half-Finn (yours truly) and one whole Finn (my mother, Pirjo) were – though this is just a guess – presumably the only ones who more or less understood what the plastic bags were singing about. I don’t want to spoil the magic, but I’ll lift a corner of the veil all the same: among other things, they were about mini-devilish gnomes. Anyone who knows Finland a little knows it’s a country populated by a type of person who isn’t easily impressed and isn’t afraid of the devil – not even his mini gnomes. Or his branch manager, that tsar in the east.

Heerlen, on the other hand, seemed just a little bit scared. But the fear that Muovipussi stirred up was of a different kind: the sort you felt as a child on a Sunday morning when you switched on *Villa Achterwerk*. A lovely sort of unease, where you don’t quite understand what’s going on and wish someone would take you by the hand and say: ‘I don’t get it either, but it’ll be all right, darling.’

The harder I try to describe what we’ve witnessed, the further I stray from the point. I read a review in which the band was described as a band from the year 3000. I think, however, that Muovipussi fits perfectly into 2026: a temporary escape from a mad world.

Voi helvetti, kiitos.