India, March 13 -- It was one of those wonderfully wet Finnish summer days - unexpected, slightly comic, and, in hindsight, perfect.

I was on the Kuopio leg of a bike-and-train trip through the country, negotiating a queue for paistetut muikut, the addictive crispy-fried whitefish that Kuopio does better than anywhere else on earth, when something stopped me mid-reach. Music. Specifically, a groove so fat, so irresistibly New Orleans in character, that for a disorienting moment I wondered if I'd been teleported from the shores of Lake Kallavesi to a sticky, beer-soaked night at Tipitina's.

A quartet had quietly materialised on a festival stage - drums, bass, guitar, keyboards - and were playing like they'd been raised in the French Quar...