Finland’s Shouting Men’s Choir

The northern Finnish town of Oulu has been described as ‘Just like Geelong, but colder and with more fish.’ It is home to, among other things, the World Air Guitar Championship.

It is also the birthplace of the Shouting Men’s Choir: thirty men in black suits, yelling.

Finns, by and large, are quiet people. Silence doesn’t have the awkward associations that it does in much of the Western world – if Finns are quiet, it’s because they’re comfortable that way. This choir was, in part, as a reaction against that tradition of silence.

The initial advert simply asked for men who wanted to scream. Hundreds of men have “sung” since then, including a lot of national anthems. This includes the Shouting Men’s Choir version of Marseillaise.

Oulu is like a lot of isolated northern towns the world over: infused with an anarchist spirit and an odd sense of humour. The choir once hopped on a bus, drove seven hundred kilometers to the ice sea between Norway and Finland, and yelled into the barren, empty wind. They then got back on the bus, and drove home.