Poko Rekords

A Finnish medium sized label, a notorious catalog of several different styles, including electronic. Short history: Poko Rekords was founded in 1977 as a part of Unitor Oy and Epe's Music Store by Epe Helenius. The first release was a single Dancing Shoes by Teddy & The Tigers, released in December 1977. Poko Rekords was releasing mainly Finnish music, and in 1980 Helenius launched Poko International to release music from international artists. In 1987 Helenius' friend and the manager of Oy Sonet Suomi Ab, Gugi Kokljuschkin offered Helenius a distribution deal, and Helenius offered a 40% share of Unitor Oy. Kokljuschkin agreed and in January 1988 Sonet acquired 40% of Unitor Oy. But, when in 1991 PolyGram bought Sonet, Helenius didn't feel comfortable doing business with PolyGram and bought the 40% back by the end of 1992. But the times were hard and Unitor Oy went bankrupt in 1993. In 1992 Helenius had set up a company called Shoeling Oy to buy the PolyGram's share of Unitor Oy, and after the bankruptcy it was used to buy the old master catalog from Unitor Oy. In 1993 Shoeling changed its name to Poko Rekords Oy. The publishing company in the early days was Jee-Jee Music Oy, but in 1992 Helenius founded Poplandia Music Oy. After the bankruptcy he acquired the shares of Jee-Jee Music to Poplandia Music Oy. In 2001 EMI announced its acquisition of Poko Rekords Oy. However, Poko still maintained a large amount of independence and it was not merged into EMI's local operations. Only some of the back office operations and distribution got handled by EMI. In 2009, Poko Rekords Oy companyname was terminated and merged into EMI's local operations, to Oy EMI Finland Ab 31.05.2009 and Poko Rekords started as one subcompany by EMI. Former CEO Epe Helenius continued as a consultant. The release policies changed: Poko continued mainly releasing music from the old back catalog and from the Finnish rock artists already signed to the label. No new artists were signed, and A&R was taken care by EMI. Since 2013 the main company Oy EMI Finland Ab is owned by Universal Music Finland and EMI Finland continues with old labels. Helenius started a new record company, Sound of Finland, and signed several artists that were disbanded by Poko during the EMI era. Distributors: Oy Discophon Ab 1977-1981 CBS Records OY 1981-1992 BMG Ariola Oy 1992-1995 / BMG Finland Oy 1995-2001 Oy EMI Finland Ab 2001-2012 Universal Music Oy 2013-