musicAddicted

iamamiwhoami have just released a trailer for kin on their To...

Wed, 30 May 2012 12:35:00 +0200

iamamiwhoami have just released a trailer for kin on their To Whom It May Concern page. 20120611 is the clear message, therefore I believe we can trust Jonna & co. will release the album on time. For now, it’s a black box for us, but the day is coming.

Emotiveness in music is a nice thing but without concept,...

Mon, 21 May 2012 13:05:22 +0200

Emotiveness in music is a nice thing but without concept, philosophy and underlying imagination seems empty and untrue to the idea of art as an expression of one’s emotions. Olan Mill, duo consisting of Alex Smalley and Svitlana Samoylenko, have a perfect vision of how to deal with emotions, the ways to evolve them in the most suitable way and, above all, what those sentiments stand for. On their debut album ‘Pine’ duo worked with space as a dimensional object to be filled with the sound of echoing strings and piano. Instead of trying for a bigger sound or greater space, the pair’s second full-length ‘Paths’ (Facture) is rather focused on the images and tones linked to journey as a concept of exploring the world around. Where ‘Pine’ was a blank, abstract surface, or an empty dome, ‘Paths’ is an imaginable world that surrounds us. It might be bit idealized and bit personalized, but still thinkable and graspable.

From the sonic perspective, ‘Paths’ demonstrates a beauty of simplicity. The sound is open, vastly spreading across the entire world and waiting for an embrace. It’s so simple: murmurs of piano with highly-set melodies as if touching the skies with your own hand in ‘Springs’ or its contrasting counterparts ‘Bleu Polar’ and ‘Rube’ which turns the idea upside down and focuses all its attention down to earth. The micro-life in meadows, brooks and woods is captured in the most calming and universal way as if Olan Mill were displaying the entire life in a single picture. Once it’s a clear, azure sky, then emerald life-full ground.

From the sun through mist Paths leads its way to darkness in ‘On Waiting.’ Dark vibrations with lush and unsettling drones set the tone for Angelo Badalamenti-like synths to fully contain the glory of a night walk through the seemingly sleeping nature. Olan Mill suggest that not everything sleeps and few dangers are still awake, waiting for their prey. Overall, it’s simple touch of low echoes of organ (possibly) against few dissonances in the violins’ melody coming over again.

In one moment the recipe of lushness and repetitiveness is too predictable. It’s the case of ‘Knew Bold’ which is too reminiscent of the opening on ‘Paths’ and imitate the conciseness present on ‘Pine.’ With an austere melody and general atmosphere of mist and fog ‘Knew Bold’ doesn’t add any new dimension to the journey took on ‘Paths’ and serves as a two minutes long bridge between the darkness and an anticipated sunset. First the setting sun is suggested in ‘Rube’ and fully evolved in the most abstract and most shiny ‘On Leaving’ overflowing with brightness and clarity. As a whole ‘Paths’ is a simple journey and articulated via words maybe too banal but the richness of the sound and believable atmospheres demonstrate the mastery of Smalley and Samoylenko in inducing images of a more charming and idealized world.

Even though the name ‘Poems From a Rooftop’ is inspired by...

Wed, 16 May 2012 13:14:34 +0200

Even though the name ‘Poems From a Rooftop’ is inspired by politics – fear of direct protest against the authorities in Iran which led the revolutionaries to their own rooftop to raise – the music evolving this concept is much more abstract and calm that a listener would expect after reading such introduction. The saxophone and clarinet of Roger Döring and Oliver Doerell’s piano and guitar calm, mystify, purr but certainly don’t protest. In contrast to their older work (such as Vertigo released six years ago) Dictaphone invited a violinist Alexander Stolze, whose gentle pizzicato and smooth touches of the bow to the string enrich the rather grayish combination of warm acoustics with electronic manipulations. Jazz-soaked compositions flow in their own tempo which invokes a mysterious calm masterfully evolved by this trio.

Probably the most impressive piece of these nine poems is the introductory ‘The Conversation.’ Few seemingly incoherent tones of saxophone open the album, but the fine strumming of Doerell’s guitar is the key there to fully introduce Poems in a shady way which stimulates imagination and suggests various emotions. It’s that moment of stopping doing all around and entirely focusing on the single sound of a simple, but sophisticated melody. The structure is tightly constructed and still, Dictaphone made it pretty open to any evolution with subconscious (and compositionally mature) intention to vary and improvise on it later. Subtle percussion, ephemeral fragments of violin-led melody and saxophone’s accompaniment to the front-lighted guitar make this piece the warmest and in the same time the least approachable out of the entire ‘Poems From a Rooftop.’ Then a nice contrast to their abstract, hazy sound is the extremely material and unique packaging from the creative studio Sonic Pieces. Palpable, physical and misty in the same moment.

The answer to any second-album jitters seemed so easy for...

Sat, 05 May 2012 16:15:11 +0200

The answer to any second-album jitters seemed so easy for Sleigh Bells: stick to their modus operandi and add some new flavour without alienating those who love them. […] Listening to Reign Of Terror it’s hard to determine what exactly went wrong in the process. A few listens in and everything seems to be in its rightful place: Krauss’s sweet vocals still connect with the abrasive, unpolished basslines and crazily hard drums

More noise and harder guitars are fine for a bit of mindless fun, but Sleigh Bells have already demonstrated talent for more.

Read the entire review over at Wears The Trousers.

This blog has been a fan of iamamiwhoami for a very long time...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:02:00 +0200

This blog has been a fan of iamamiwhoami for a very long time for their dedication to provocative imaginary, creation of new, undiscovered associations and, above all, quality original electro-pop. The decision to release a video for every song of their upcoming debut album Kin has been a brave gesture towards full audio-visual experience. Has anything similar happened in the last few years in pop music? Even if it did, iamamiwhoami are pioneers in how they connect their music to visual stories and brand new world of their own. Still, music is a story too and this Swedish project just highlights this element of art.

However, watching their new single ‘In due order’ suggests an exhaustion of ideas and fumbling for mystery. But it seems to be bit unnecessary to put hidden meanings into every piece and self-satisfactory to indicate some kind of enigma in every second of the story. This inclination towards symbols causes the banality with which ‘In due order’ evolves into – let’s be honest – nothing particular. The broken mourning of ‘Sever’, exciting adventure of ‘Drops’, calm interlude in ‘Good Worker’ resulted in dark-party of ‘Play’ where our protagonist got back into the forest to become an uncontrolled siren trying to throw away her fears and pains of past with dancing.

Her sobering of this illusions was hinted to be evolved in ‘In due order’ which is, in an opposite way, another hallucination taking place in the sterile white room. Sonically, it’s simple, almost banal tribute to the same theme as Clump introduced while too much reminding of Ladytron and Deep Cuts-era The Knife. What’s the direction of the getting rid of “blending into convention’s way?” Do iamamiwhoami aim for some absolution or, at least, a climax which they amazingly stimulated in film-like ‘y’? And what about the philosophy behind Kin-era? Will there be anything greater than just sterile, inhuman, utilitarian icy white? I hope iamamiwhoami will get there and lead us along with them.

UPDATE: The creator of a blog called ApocalypseWolf reacted to this short feature on iamamiwhoami’s new single with this post. I admit that ‘In due order’ is a part of a longer story which has been evolved for admirably long time. Nevertheless, a decision to film a video for every single asks for a discussion and a desire to question every element of the jigsaw. I will certainly wait for how the story ends, but, on the other side, question and scrutinize iamamiwhoami’s exciting journey.

Sometimes I wonder whether electronics are some kind of an...

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 15:21:00 +0200

Sometimes I wonder whether electronics are some kind of an escape for classically trained musicians. If they try to express bit different ideas with a language very different from their usual, good ol’ piano or violin put too many constrains and traditional thinking in harmonies, progresses and melodic lines. Synthesizers, vocoders, processors and all the appliances that give an option to manipulate, modify and mutate come handy in such situation when an instrument is too bounding and too anticipated – especially when something extra-ordinary wants ti go out of soul.

Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm, label mates from German-based label Erased Tapes did something similar to the musings above. They met first in Berlin, later in Reykjavík to jam, to play, to experiment. What they finally evolved is an art of surprise and unexpected nature; Arnalds & Frahm picked analogue synthesizers with few quintessential synth effects and processed them through filters with some manipulations known only to them and a bunch of professionals.

Electronics are usually associated with cold, inhuman emotions, but the result of this collaborative effort is a completely opposite feeling: Stare (out on April 21st, Erased Tapes) is a soothing and highly touching piece of work. The sub-basses are warm, click-clack melodies are purely playful and all of this is poured in a slowly moving, whitely gleaming sonic liquid. It’s hard to say if the beeps in a1 should evoke glockenspiel or the tremours in a2 resemble a low-tuned xylophone; all of this is a nocturnal, yet lightly beaming mass of peacefully flowing hush.

Soap&Skin: Narrow

Sat, 24 Mar 2012 10:57:38 +0100

Soap&Skin: Narrow:

Anja Plaschg’s impressive and aptly titled 2009 debut Lovetune For Vacuum documented an intense desire to escape from her teenage sorrows and fears into a world of her own making, pitched almost schizophrenically against the subconscious knowledge that such a freedom is impossible. As much as we might sometimes want to escape ourselves, if we wish to continue life then our internal nightmares must be overcome – or at the very least accepted. Soap&Skin, her imaginary artistic persona, knew all of that and wrapped these distorted and incredibly intense emotions into delicate piano-led and electronically manipulated ballads highly influenced by the Central European folklore tradition of songwriting.

Despite the wildly experimental nature of Lovetune For Vaccuum, the album charted highly in Plaschg’s native Austria and won the praise of hordes of critics throughout Europe. But just as Plaschg seemed to be within reach of taking her destiny into her own hands, her father died unexpectedly and happiness once again seemed to be fated to elude her. The eight recordings on Narrow capture Plaschg’s state of mind during this period and her subsequent move to Italy. Played and produced entirely on her own, it’s perhaps no surprise that the result is even darker and more oppressive than her debut.

Read more on ‘Narrow’ over at Wears The Trousers.

Hanne Hukkelberg: Featherbrain

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 19:12:11 +0100

Hanne Hukkelberg: Featherbrain:

Immediate surroundings seem to have a powerful influence over Hanne Hukkelberg’s state of mind, and certainly her music. Her impressively lovely debut Little Things was recorded in the warmth of her own home, giving the impression of a naturally playful artist secured and impressed by the subtleties of found sounds and everyday things. A rawness crept in around the edges for the follow-up, Rykestrasse 68, which documented a temporary to Berlin, while isolating herself on a remote island in northern Norway brought much braver, colder edges to her songwriting, as documented in the audacious jazz-rock experimentation of 2009′s Blood From A Stone. Hukkelberg’s belief in a concept and willingness to constantly reimagine her approach to her art provides an implicit hint of what not to expect from her fourth album Featherbrain, and that’s something we’ve already heard.

If you thought that Pine, debut album by Olan Mill, was lush and...

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 10:11:00 +0100

If you thought that Pine, debut album by Olan Mill, was lush and utterly emotive and couldn’t be more romantic, their forthcoming sophomore full-length Paths (Fac-ture) proves you wrong. Here Alex Smalley and Svitlana Samoylenko work with vast fields of sonic sweetness; but it’s not that overly sugary, saccharine simplicity of new age, but rather a sincere expression of pleasurable delight.

Bleu Polar is the opening track of this half an hour long experience. It seems to be a drama at first given the progress of chords but soon comes into oddly charming melancholy. As if an organ couldn’t reach the striking straight-forwardness of strings which fulfill this composition with their delicate, yet very patient micro-world. As Smalley and Samoylenko evolve Bleu Polar towards its end, this micro-cosmos starts to negate the physical laws and unfolds into macro-space, gaining a spectacular wideness with a honeyed bliss. What once sounded as a organ-based melodrama becomes a cello-led beauty. Paths is going to be a honourable follower of Pine. Be sure to check another track, not shorter than eight-minutes sonic trip, Amber Balanced, too.

It’s been more than two years, but we know still nothing...

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 15:28:28 +0100

It’s been more than two years, but we know still nothing of iamamiwhoami and, above all, what to expect of them. Unlike their latest singles (if six months ago can be marked as latest) sever is not a power-disco; it’s rather the opposite. Emotive ballad with a poppy catchiness and anthemic depth. As always, inspirational video comes along in deluxe package of staggering music and puzzling visuals. Enjoy.

New video by iamamiwhoami, called kin 20120611. New single,...

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:40:00 +0100

New video by iamamiwhoami, called kin 20120611. New single, Sever comes on February 15th. New dawn comes, my dears.

Shapeshifting Detroit techno of 19.454.18.5.25.5.18

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 17:18:17 +0100

Detroit techno is an evergreen genre; maybe it’s not the most popular subculture within electronic underground, but shows impressively stable following and steady delivery of not-much-different music. Lack of evolution, or better, constancy of its sound and aesthetic is one its appeals which help it to stay within its rigidly austere and aggressively beat-driven environment without extinction or getting into mainstream.

And yet, after all these (quite unjust) preconceptions about impossibility of diversity and constancy, the new mix by 19.454.18.5.25.5.18 feels fresh, new and inspiring (stream above via Official.fm). It heavily reminds me of Redshape, another mystic persona, or late stuff by Carl Craig. 19.454.18.5.25.5.18, project of an unknown individual or a group (who knows?), first amazed techno fans by his murky mix for Resident Advisor and follows his path of dark mystery with an hour-long pastiche for a Dutch label Field Records. It starts from smokey underground and rises into brutal iciness of bare beats followed by more percussion-oriented and rhythm-variable passages. If anyone falls asleep in the beginning of the third quarter, this shapeshifer moves into even more minimalist areas with focus on drum patterns and tiny fragments of melody. It’s pretty characteristic to a project like 19.454.18.5.25.5.18 to end his mix with mood of a folklore sacrifice to gods, since his perception of techno seems pretty ritualistic, reaching the areas of slower-beats-focused Raime and Shackleton. Hold your breathe and prepare for an hour-long techno blackout.

Michał Jacaszek, Polish composer and musician first crossed his...

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:11:04 +0100

Michał Jacaszek, Polish composer and musician first crossed his paths with my music library with his third full-length Treny released on Norwegian label Miasmah. That dark affair, half-classical, half-dark ambient amazed me with its indefiniteness and unapproachability. As with every Miasmah signee, Jacaszek explored his own vision of artistic darkness: bit nostalgic, partly foggy and slightly brutal.

In comparison to Treny, his latest album Glimmer released in the end of 2011 begins somehow lighter, almost shinier. Yes, there’s the droning bass in ‘Goldengrove’ which creates the shadows embracing the music all around, but the main theme of a charmingly singing harpsichord accompanied by playful banjo and fragile glockenspiel. The high-pitched sound of harpsichord – sharp in its sound and majestic in delivery – as if suggested that the glimmering nature of this album dwells in a veneer-like shallowness. Luckily, the following ‘Dare-Gale’ (streamed above; check out its video too) wins over such presumptions. Jacaszek is patient in uncovering its many layers and evolving its beauty towards a magnificence. First, there’s a humble, subdued combination of basic harmonies which are present for the entire six minutes.

‘Dare-Gale’ cracks, breaks down and rises up again reminding of never-dying Phoenix who will burn and than revive even stronger and more beautiful. Jacaszek demonstrates here his talent for building up a tension and releasing it in an ecstatic, noisy climax. However, it’s not just a demonstration of know-how, but also and foremost an emotional peak with heart bumping and mind blowing.

After its first and probably the most glorious highlight, Jacaszek focuses more on structure and instrumental diversity. Whether it’s a deployment of bassoon and clarinet in moody ‘Pod-Swiatlo’ which sounds like a walk across a mysterious woods just a second before a twilight or it’s a scary omen of a over-processed hellish noise in ‘Evening Strains To Be Time’s Vast’ having a dialogue with folklore-tinged clarinet, Jacaszek goes further, but remains true to the concept of Glimmer. Melancholy of baroque inspired ‘As Each Tucked String Tells’ and definitiveness of closing ‘Windhover’ than not only confirm his love for classical music and his processing into a complex of moods, impressions and, of course, glimmers.

Those two faces of Glimmer – serene impressions of classical instruments having a party in a droning limbo – are its most fascinating asset. Jacaszek composed nine versions of such event and every one of them is different, yet very similar. The selection of a harpsichord is even more striking and moves the overall atmosphere into more gothic, but somehow luminous areas as if visiting an old palace with all its ghosts and shadows waiting to be released. And trust me, you’ll love them.

After a bit disappointing song Yellow Halo comes something...

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:12:50 +0100

After a bit disappointing song Yellow Halo comes something sounder and more exciting from Goldfrapp, British duo who started their career more than a decade ago. Melancholy Sky, as the name suggests and artwork hints, is a song of blue, ethereal atmosphere. Here Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory make the path of their career a full circle. Chamber, noir nature of their Felt Mountain is tangibly present in the strings’ section and the saxophone mini-solo in the bridge. The catchy poppiness of Black Cherry and Supernature is hidden in its straight-forward verse-chorus-bridge-structure. The most obvious and probably the most essential is the meandering melody which flows from a calm beginning above the world and beyond the sky. Yet, the warmth and somewhat pastoral harmony owes much to their fourth album, spring-tinged Seventh Tree.

And still, the bottom line lays in Alison’s half-broken, half-reconciled words: “Melancholy sky, You made me blue, Still hanging on, There’s nothing I can do, Not this time.” This absolution has always been part of Goldfrapp’s world and Melancholy Sky is its high peak. Feeling the triumphalism in the closing arrangements and Alison’s words, it seems that a certain phase of this project gets towards its end. After hearing Melancholy Sky, it’s pretty obvious, that new highs are ahead – whatever genre will they choose next.

Ólafur Arnalds has already became a synonym for lush,...

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:12:00 +0100

Ólafur Arnalds has already became a synonym for lush, melancholy minimalist approach towards modern classical composition during those four years he’s been around. Don’t expect any Arvo Pärt’s experimentalism, Gyorgy Ligeti’s magnificence or Daníel Bjarnason’s maximalist view of a classical music. Arnalds mediates the world of “simple” acoustic music played on classical instruments but composed for broad audience spanning from indie-rockers to techno-lovers. Backing himself with useful electronics and appealing drums just evolves his philosophy of interconnecting these two worlds through sincere simplicity.

His soundtrack to independent film of debuting Sam Levinson, Another Happy Day, first screened at Sundance Film Festival, is another piece to Arnalds’ neo-classical jigsaw. Emotive strings, blue piano, melodramatic mini-climaxes are woven into every minute of this chamber drama. Almost precisely one year after Arnalds put the central motive of Lynn’s Theme online comes another piece. Poland is even more austere, almost shallow. As if that short piano theme you hear in the beginning was looped for entire three minutes and half. But in the entirety of Another Happy Day soundtrack (released on Erased Tapes on February 27th) Poland fulfills the role of “silence before a storm.” It’s silent, but uneasy; it’s almost void, but much more is still to come – and it’s worth to wait for it. Poland, alone, would be quite a grey experience of abstract sadness, but in the context of the album, Arnalds puts a sense into it.

The latest edition of Intelligent Life features an inspiring...

Sun, 25 Dec 2011 18:11:00 +0100

The latest edition of Intelligent Life features an inspiring photo essay assembled of Sebastião Salgado’s breath-taking black & white pictures took in Ethiopia. The photo above, part of his gargantuan Genesis project, captures Alaska as a place untouched by a human. Awesome, indeed.

altAddicted: The most impressive alternative albums of 2011

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:55:47 +0100

(10) Okkyung Lee - Noisy Love Songs

Just very few people can express more emotions through a single instrument than Okkyung Lee does with her cello. Equipped with few field recordings and loops of her playing, Noisy Love Songs finds her tempting the limits of the cello and testing the openness of her listener. These uneasy provocative, but at the same time elegant compositions are a must for a free-form lover.

(9) Kyle Bobby Dunn - Ways Of Meaning

If there was a record sounding like a great meadow of blue calm this year, it would be Dunn’s Ways Of Meaning. Dynamic in its inner constancy, sorrowful in the secret harmony of the organ, this album finds the glory in an unlimited time and space.

(8) Sandwell District - Feed Forward

Shadows are the nearest quasi-object expressing the unapproachable character of Feed Forward, a genius collection of four minimal techno LPs. No light, no stroboscope, no diodes of technics are seen in this dark place under the club. Just the subdued beats and conjuring basses sinking even deeper into a dazed mind.

(7) A Winged Victory For The Sullen - A Winged Victory For The Sullen

The first collaboration between Dustin O’Halloran and Adam Bryanbaum Wiltzie sounds as if they wanted to pair never-ending silence with the most beautiful single tone of some of their chosen instruments. This record is unashamedly spacious, offering a calm escape from the world.

(6) Daniel Thomas Freeman - The Beauty Of Doubting Yourself

The inner darkness and fear has two faces: it eats the human from the inside, but also stimulates his most hidden talents and imaginations. This release finds the author in post-darkness phase, reconciling shadowy essence of his own’s soul gloominess.

(5) Hauschka & Hildur Guðnadóttir - Pan Tone

Almost an hour of improvisation performed by a moving sound of cello and a craziness of prepared piano which often sounds more like a percussion belongs to one of the most daring releases this year. Its qualities lay in the carefree nature of its creators and their simultaneous challenge to come with new sounds with preserving the consistency. Like its name, Pan Tone is an oceanic morphing beauty.

(4) Ben Frost & Daníel Bjarnason - Sólaris

Reykjavík-based duo has made an ambitious, almost unreachable goal: to illustrate the psychotic difficulties of one’s mind in a extreme conditions of an astronaut being squeezed of his secret emotions by an undecipherable alien force. Frost & Bjarnason reached the odd scariness of such situation through spacey passages of silence and dense fragments of dissonance. Not only those contrasts made an icy impression but the uneasy nature and thoughtful structure materialized the fears of Lem & Tarkovsky at their best.

(3) Juv - Juv

There has hardly been a harder and more difficult album this year than Juv – debut which has been waiting for its release for 13 years. Document of the sufferings and pains of growing up and changing from a creative youth into a self-realized adult is just part of Juv’s success. It’s the desolate murkiness and imaginative hopelessness that wins a broken heart of the listener.

(2) The Caretaker - An Empty Bliss Beyond This World

One of the most emphatic works of last few years comes from the hands and mind of Leyland Kirby who imagines a fragmented and half-broken memory of patients suffering from Alzheimer. From frostiness to a touching absolution, this music is a full bliss beyond the grayness of the life.

(1) Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972

Destruction of the art through the destruction of the sound as the underlying tool of music itself is a smart concept in an even smarter realization. As long as the synthesizers shiver and the church organ hums, one can’t get rid of those goosebumps that don’t want to go away. An impressive journey with a massive ideological basis.

It’s quite strange to have a band like Goldfrapp releasing...

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:40:00 +0100

It’s quite strange to have a band like Goldfrapp releasing a best-of their singles: a thing they were opposing for an entire decade of their career. Whatever you think of compilations – in this British duo’s case simply named The Singles – one can’t deny their career has been rich on surprising moments and inspiring turn-arounds. After the decadent imaginative utopia of Felt Mountain came even darker Black Cherry followed by top-notch pop of Supernature. Then came a calm and balladry Seventh Tree after which we were served with a 80s kitsch of Head First. From the release of best-of, instead of a studio album, I assume Goldfrapp are bit tired of composing, recording and coming with new genres that will be adopted by mainstream scene two or three years later.

Anyway, here comes a studio version of Yellow Halo, one of two fresh, new songs put to the end of The Singles (see tracklist). Based on the above-mentioned assumptions, Yellow Halo is a mid-tempo ethereal ballad which sounds tired and not as inspiring as their earlier songs. Alison’s soft whispery voice is incredibly warm and silky, but the lyrics are bit repetitive and flat. The arrangements follow the suite with celebratory, but minimalist pomp of something ending. As if they were saying: “we need a break and this is a temporary farewell.” Yellow Halo sits somewhere between Supernature’s ‘Time Out from the World’ and pretty much half of Seventh Tree, including that autumn-like haze. The song itself is nice, cozy and reflective, but somehow weaker than Goldfrapp we’ve used to know.

Out of Sasu Ripatti’s many projects, Vladislav Delay bears the...

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 12:36:00 +0100

Out of Sasu Ripatti’s many projects, Vladislav Delay bears the heaviest burden of minimalist darkness. One could argue that Luomo is that micro-house with poppy tendencies, celebrated by dance music-savvy listeners. Uusitalo is then an escape from colourful lights into an industrial murk of minimal techno. Then there is his occasional work as Sistol, his weird-glitch experimenting, and sporadic collaborating with Moritz von Oswald Trio. But what about works under Vladislav Delay, his most prolific and complex moniker?

This Oulu-born artist leaves his sparsest textures and the most daring rhythmic structures for strangely named Vladislav Delay. Whether you take his break-through glitchy Multila or subsequent Anima, consisting of just one single hour-long track, Delay has always been a playground for Ripatti’s most diverse creative thinking. The astonishing imaginativeness and openness to many other genres – from field-recordings-based ambient to IDM to industrial – was most prominently documented on his previous record Tummaa which incredibly emphasized the eclectic nature of his Vladislav Delay direction.

However, Ripatti is totally on a different place on his latest full-length Vantaa (Raster-Noton) named by a town which makes up the Helsinki Metropolitan Area and is on the verge of being autonomous from the capital city, but also being an integral part of it. Delay’s sonic Vantaa similarly oscillates somewhere in-between. Two worlds are forming around Vantaa, but inside of it even more. The moist, humid fogginess suggests a cold, but human touch: something you can really approach, touch and feel with parts of your body. Those sounds, as in watery Lipite, drizzle to the ground and soak into an already damp mass. Delay evolves these perceptions with patience and delicate detail. There’s neither sound which is unnecessary, nor is there a beat which would be meaningless – every note has a mission of intermediating this calm, wet wet world.

On the other side of the spectrum is a cold synthesis of computers, amplifiers, transformers and unnamable electronic toolkits which guarantee that everything sticks together. In Delay’s world these are not just the tools; electronic equipment is an equal member of his minimalist work. A perfect example of such technicality and industrial chill is the title-track Vantaa based on a simple slow-mo beat which thickens and gets more complicated and simultaneously artificial.

The abstract cold of Finnish minimal techno is best documented in subsequent Lauma (the excerpt streams above) built on stones of a challenging, but impressive beats which get denser and even more difficult to swallow. Lauma represents the most oppressive track on Vantaa and Delay gets extra points for the brave and terrific accomplishment of this uneasy task. The attempt of digesting those long eight minutes becomes more terrific with every new motive and becomes a terror as Lauma nears to its end.

Luckily, Vantaa is not about contrasts as simple as white versus black. Take tranquil, repetitive Narri which sounds everything from your uncle repairing his boat to a paddle stirring the surface of cold lake. Many moments on Vantaa are so beautifully smooth thanks to their ambiguity and numerous explanations of not only the source, but more importantly, the result. Vantaa is more a synthesis of various Delay’s musical spectrums than a patchwork of beat-driven ambient. The key element which holds his newest album together is an emotional and sonic integrity and the different tendencies suggest diversity. Strong and demanding piece of dynamic, imaginative minimalism.

"Human beings need unhappiness at least as much as they need happiness."

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 11:46:25 +0100

“Human beings need unhappiness at least as much as they need happiness.”

- Shirley Hazzard: Greene on Capri