Leija Lautamaja is a pop artist who doesn’t fit into a box and that’s why she hits the spot. She makes pop music that had no name before her.

Leija seamlessly combines, for example, harmonium and the dance beat. The music is easy to embrace but completely unique, warm and playful, and at the same time precisely observant. Her lyrics bring moments, emotions and phenomena to the table without further explanation.

Leija’s music has a dreamlike street credibility, something where the intuition of folk music meets the catchiness of pop and the compelling movement of beat.

Leija’s debut solo album, Sydän tuli piilosta, was released in May 2024 and has received a lot of positive attention. Critics have called it a convincing change of genre and noted that it contains hit after hit.

“Here, too, we draw deep from the soil of tradition, but from the roots we dig out something truly modern, present, something that explodes in this time.”
-Pekka Laine

“Hypnotic, monotonous, at the same time humorous. And then I was confused right at the beginning. Except that I’m a fan of harmony, I realised that I’m a fan of this song.”
– Jussi Paasi, Record Committee

“Leija Lautamaja has managed to fuse the sound of a harmonium with a dance beat. The song Kun rakkaus iski minuun utilizes the slowly igniting sound characteristic of harmonium, which sounds surprisingly much like the ducking effect used in electronic dance music, where the chord underneath pumps to the beat of the bass drum. The original atmosphere is crowned by Lautamaja’s joyful lyrics and Pekko Käppi’s Finnish bowed lyre.”
– Ilkka Mattila, HS