New Jori Hulkkonen Album: Man from Earth (Turbo Recordings, October 2009)

All the latest Jori Hulkkonen news will be now updated to:

http://phinnweb.tumblr.com/tagged/Jori_Hulkkonen

Jori Hulkkonen: 'Bend Over Beethoven' (2009; animation by Len Lye, roughly edited by TVP)

Jori Hulkkonen will release his new album in October on Tiga's Turbo Recordings imprint.



Artist: Jori Hulkkonen
Title: Man from Earth
Label: Turbo Recordings (Canada)
Date: October 2009

Tracklist:

01. I Am Dead feat. Jerry Valuri
02. Boying in the Smokeroom
03. Dancerous
04. The Other Side of Time
05. Re Last Year feat. Villa Nah
06. Ridge Over Trouble Forrester
07. Musta Gunilla
08. Undercover feat. The Dove
09. I Dance to Your Bass My Friend
10. Bend Over Beethoven
11. My Brother Went to Space and All I Got Was This Lousy Vacuum
12. Man from Earth

More info @ Resident Advisor

Sid Loves Turbo: Podcast Vol. 47 - Jori Hulkkonen (JH: "100% Finnish music only, including Tuomas Toivonen, FBI and a taster from my forthcoming album")

See also the latest video from Jori Hulkkonen's Acid Symphony Orchestra project:

Acid Symphony Orchestra - Diamonds Of The Night from Jori Hulkkonen on Vimeo.

Official music video for
Acid Symphony Orchestra - 'Diamonds Of The Night'.
Directed by Jori Hulkkonen & Jani Lehto, 2009.

Taken from the forthcoming Acid Symphony Orchestra 12" on Turbo recordings featuring live recordings of ASO shows.
'Diamonds Of The Night' recorded live at BIOS @ Athens, Greece in May 2009.

The Acid Symphony Orchestra live perfomances feature 10 Roland TB-303 bassline synthesizers, one TR-707 or a TR-808 drummachine and personnel to operate them.

Composer and conductor:
Jori Hulkkonen

The Orchestra:
Juha Matinmäki
Aku "Huoratron" Raski
Kalle Karvanen
Jussi-Pekka "Monoder" Parikka
Janne "Burdock" Puurunen
Tatu "Mr Velcro Fastener" Peltonen
Kimmo "Acid Kings" Oksanen
Pete "Sintetik" Salonen
Tuomas Toivonen
Johannes "TinMan" Auvinen

Villa Nah: VN EP (Keys of Life/Sähkö Recordings)

Keys of Life, a sublabel of Helsinki's Sähkö Recordings announces a new release by Villa Nah, an electronic duo by of Juho Paalosmaa and Tomi Hyyppä; comparing them to such early-80s synthpop luminaries as Heaven 17 and New Order. Also Jori Hulkkonen lends his production skills. More info at press releases notes @ Sähkö Recordings.

Artist: Villa Nah
Title: VN EP
Format: 12"/CD/digital download
Label: Keys of Life/Sähkö Recordings (Finland)
Cat.no.: LIFE-18
Date: April 2009

Tracklist:

A. Ways To Be
B1. Envelope
B2. Daylight

Credits:

All songs written & produced by Villa Nah.
Co-produced by Jori Hulkkonen.
Mixed by Villa Nah & Jori Hulkkonen @ alppIVhouz, 2009.
Mastered by Pete Salone @ Silencio.
Graphic design by Antti Uotila.

Villa Nah will appear this Satuday at Vanha Yo-Talo (the Old Student House) in Helsinki:

>>>>>
IHME Club: Op:l Bastards, Villa Nah, Association of Experimental Electronics & DJ Esko Routamaa

9 p.m. to 4 a.m. on Saturday night, 4 April.

The club takes place in the Bar of the Old Student House (Helsinki) and features a rare performance from the pioneer of Finnish electronic music, Op:l Bastards - who made an impressive return at the 2007 Flow Festival - as well as the retro-tinged, warm synth electro of the duo Villa Nah. DJ Esko Routamaa will be spinning records during the night.

In addition to the live music and the DJ, the IHME Club programme includes a visual dimension in the form of a cross-artistic performance executed by the Association of experimental electronics, who create musical machines from electronic junk and walk the tightrope between chaos and order. The IHME Club programme is designed by the artist Tommi Grönlund, the founder of the record label Sähkö Recordings.

Admission to the IHME Club is free. Tickets are limited - ensure your admission to the club by picking up your tickets beforehand between 30 March and 3 April at the location of Antony Gormley´s Clay and the Collective Body; the Kaisaniemi field, Kaisaniementie street 1-3. Once the IHME Days are underway on Friday, 3 April, tickets can be collected at the information desk of the Old Student House. Two tickets per person.
<<<<<

Keys of Life @ pHinnWeb (not updated)

Jori Hulkkonen: 'So Run The Tears Like Wine' Acid Symphony

Jori Hulkkonen: 'So Run The Tears Like Wine' Acid Symphony Part One


Jori Hulkkonen: 'So Run The Tears Like Wine' Acid Symphony Part Two


Jori Hulkkonen: 'So Run The Tears Like Wine' Acid Symphony Part Three

Jori Hulkkonen and His Experimental Piece For 10 Roland TB-303s is now on YouTube in three parts:
"So Run The Tears Like Wine" @ Festival For New Music (UMF), 5th Of August 2007, Turku, Finland. The Acid Symphony Orchestra: Jori Hulkkonen, Jesper Dahlbäck, Kalle Karvanen, Aku Raski, J-P Parikka, Janne Puurunen, Kimmo Oksanen, Petri Salonen, Tuomas Toivonen, Johannes Auvinen, Tatu Peltomäki.

The Film © Sähkö Recordings, Keys Of Life Records & Las Palmas Films 2008.

V/A: Electronic Helsinki Vol. 1 (Cymbidium Records)

Various Artists
Electronic Helsinki Vol. 1 (CD)
Cymbidium Records / Octagram Records
9 May 2007

1. Lunar Mascot: Story
2. The Millioners: Body Into Use
3. Musa Basha: Sherpa Boy
4. DJ Pataässä feat. The Sensitive Man: Just vain sulle
5. Uusi Fantasia: Kenkä Joe
6. Ercola: Sumthang
7. PJVM: */*****
8. Imatran Voima: Nuttin' But Leechin'
9. Mr. Velcro Fastener: Masters of the Unipherse
10. DJ Vilhelm: Monorama
11. Boyz of Caligula: Nazi Tiger
12. ALInEN: Testio
13. The Five Corners Quintet: Before We Say Goodbye (Jori Hulkkonen remix)
14. Polytron: Red Whine

Press release text:

"Brand new compilation Electronic Helsinki features 14 tracks of alternative dance music from Finland. The music is brought to you by the finest finnish producers of today. Artists appearing on the compilation are: Imatran Voima, Uusi Fantasia, Polytron, Ercola, PJVM, The Millioners, Mr Velcro Fastener and many more to list.

CD is a joint venture of two Finnish independent labels, Cymbidium and Octagram, who combine their forces for this high quality release. The unique cover artwork is brought to you by IVANAhelsinki. Besides the normal digipack, a limited edition of the compilation is available in a special canvas cover, designed by Paola Suhonen. Get it while you can, it surely is hot!

Record is sold in Finland by Design Forum Finland, Myymälä2, Lifesaver, Stupido Shop, Lux.

The canvas cover is available only in IVANAhelsinki Campus store, Uudenmaankatu 15. Record is distributed by Töölön musiikkitukku: sales@toolonmusiikitukku.com."

More info:

Sound samples @ Octagram

Cymbidium Records @ MySpace

Cymbidium Records @ Discogs.com

Jori Hulkkonen on the Sad State of Post-Electronica Days

Finnish electronic artist Jori Hulkkonen has now released an album of his new synthpop type project called Processory, featuring vocals from a mystical person called Jerry Valuri (reading from between the lines in the interview quoted below, it's indicated that it's just Jori himself, though obviously Mr. Hulkkonen would go to lengths to deny this).

So in occasion, Finnish music magazine Sue interviews in their latest issue Jori Hulkkonen, who gives some interesting comments about the current reception of electronic (dance) music in Finland after the late 90s craze of electronica; probably this applies to mainstream media around the world too:

"Suomessa ollaan konservatiivisia. Nyt on jopa otettu muutama askel taaksepäin. 90-luvun lopulla, kun elektroninen musiikki oli kaupallisesti menestyvää, löytyi ulkokultaista pro-electronica-asennetta. Oltiin ymmärtävinään sitä kulttuuria. Nyt kun se ei ole enää niin suosittua, paukutellaan henkseleitä, että kyllähän me tiedettiin, ettei se kestä. Se on tavallaan huvittavaa."

As my rough translation this would go something like:

"People in Finland are conservative. Now they have even taken some steps backwards. In the end of 90s when electronic music was commercially successful, there was a lot of cant pro-electronica attitude. One pretended to understand that culture. Now, when it's not that popular anymore, one is boasting that, yes, we did know that it wouldn't last. That's amusing in a way."

What Jori Hulkkonen says here is very symptomatic about the ways media seems to work. After electronica (the moniker many hated) inevitably became unfashionable, music media did what they were expected to do: the return "back to basics", and the re-emergence guitar rock and all the popular myths contained in it, still lovingly favoured by the white middle-aged male music critics who dominate music mags the world over. Out go the Roland and Korg synths, 303s, 808s, 909s; in come (for the nth time in the music history of the last 50 years) the Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters. Enter The Strokes, The White Stripes, The Libertines and myriads of other "s"-suffix bands of young hopefuls donning leather jackets, 80s-style stretch jeans, sneakers, shaggy haircuts and overdriven guitar sounds. It was 1979 again, and again and again; the celebration of recycled sounds. After these "s"-bands had their respective turn to lose their hold in music fashion, then it was time to dig up the late 60s/early 70s folk sounds, where "singer-songerwriters" and Mother Nature's hirsute sons and daughters ruled supreme: psychedelic folk, forest folk, New Weird of America/Finland/Antarctica/whatever. All in all, electronic dance music went back underground -- where some people think it should also stay.

[MP3] Kompleksi vs. Citizen Omega: "Betrayal"

Here is another demo track as collaboration of Kompleksi and Citizen Omega. The lyrics are inspired by some people I've known...

Kompleksi vs. Citizen Omega: "Betrayal" [MP3]

Betrayal

Here I stand before a firing squad
because of someone I mistook for a friend
No cigarettes or last wishes
just waiting for my end

We worked the resistance
under the eyes of the occupation army
Sharing secrets and codewords
he was our best man, so I heard

He liked to talk and convince people
persuasion was his game
Shaking hands and flashing smiles
every night he had a new dame

(chorus:)

Betrayal
betrayal
betrayal
...

His shoes were always perfectly shining
at the finest bistros he was dining
His talk seemed to hypnotise
you were in his pockets to utilise

He was always awfully nice
but I guess everyone has their price
How was I to know
he had no soul

(chorus)

Walking that no man's land
between diplomacy and duplicity
He had the world at his fingertips
but loose lips sink ships

Mind betrays the deceitful eyes
and deceitful words betray
untrue eyes

Mind betrays the deceitful eyes
and deceitful words betray
untrue eyes

He was an incredibly swell guy
the best turncoat money could buy
Had to be on the side of the winner
somebody had to pay for his dinner

In the end you stand alone
these people won't admit they once knew you
I knew what fate had for me in store
in the middle of night a knock on my door

(chorus)

This lonely courtyard at dawn
morning dew still covers the lawn
I hear the church bells chime
as I close my eyes for the last time

---

And more Kompleksi news:

The famous Finnish house music artist and DJ Jori Hulkkonen has played Kompleksi's "Moscow 1980" on his September 16 2005 radio show Klubi on YLEX:

Tracklist: Klubi 16.09.2005
Jori Hulkkonen

DNA: La Serenissima (ZYX)
Star You Star Me: Sweet Things (Ian Pooley Dub) (Moodmusic)
Juho Kahilainen: Prankster Calling (Initial Cuts)
Kalle-M: Dom (Frozen North)
Phonogenic: It Came From 1984 (Phonogenic Audio)
Kompleksi with Polytron: Moscow 1980 (Lal lal lal)
Laurent Garnier: Barbiturik Blues (C2 remix) (F Communications)
ScanX: Emotion (F...U! Fcom!)
Röyksopp: 49 Percent (Angello & Ingrosso Remix) (Wall Of Sound)
* * *
Live: Hundarna Från Söder @ Public Service, 2004

Intro
Arayas
Please Don't
Import-Export
Are-N-Bee
Happiness
Elektro1
Elektro2
* * *
Onur Özer: 1996 (Freude Am Tanzen)
Ken Laszlo: Don't Cry (Beat Box)
When In Rome: The Promise (10 Records)

---

Earlier

Jori Hulkkonen On The Sad State Of Finnish Music Journalism

Here's a quickie translation of this column by Jori Hulkkonen which appears today at the Nyt weekend supplement of Helsingin Sanomat and can be read in Finnish here.


The Electronic Bubble
- pop journalism without electricity

[Jori Hulkkonen, 22.10.2004]

Finnish pop journalism has returned, after a few more hopeful years, to the state that has always been taken for granted -- the Helsinki-based rock journalism.

Obviously the new writer generation, when writing for Finnish music magazines, has to legitimate their own place there by continuing along the conservative style of those mags. It is the outcome of either a conscious process, or then the starting journalists only try to be faithful to the assumed agenda of their employer or their perceived cultural Zeitgeist.

This trend that started a couple of years ago, has gone so far during this year that you haven't been able to find articles on electronic music or reviews even from those magazines specialized in pop music -- not taking into account some domestic exceptions or electronic rockers like Prodigy.

What has been most characteristic to these articles, though, has been their division in two. On the other hand, there's the naive lack of criticism towards electronic music coming from Finland. For some peculiar reason, domestic media has taken on the image of Finland being some sort of a New Mecca for electronic music, and that the last glimmer of hope for the dying genre is here amidst the Arctic
darkness.

On the other hand, it is not uncommon that all genres of electronic music are just made up into bundles, and it is all overlooked as a phenomenon that already had its heyday in the 90s.

It has to be admitted that this is quite understandable concerning Finnish marketplace that holds an emphasis with rock music. Local radio stations seem to have already lost the more alternative electronic music, and its future without open and critical press only seems hopeless.

Jori Hulkkonen On The State Of Club Culture

Jori Hulkkonen starts as a new columnist for the Nyt weekend supplement of Helsingin Sanomat, the largest daily newspaper in Finland. Here is his first column.

For non-Finnish readers, it's about the stagnation of club culture: Jori argues that the people who used to be club regulars have reached their middle-ages and would rather stay home with their own families than go clubbing any more, and "for the new generation hiphop, r&b and the so called new coming of rock music are more fascinating that the club circus run by the thirty-somethings".

I think this is quite symptomatic for this age: we have reached an era that could be called "post-techno" or "post-rave"; it seems that there is no more similar culture of rave/techno/clubs that was prevalent about ten or fifteen years ago. There does exist some sort of new generation of ravers/clubbers with their popular genres of "kiksu"/"polkka" (= as trance variants are called in Finland), but for me that culture is just a pale shadow or a sort of bloodless re-tread of what it used to be in the early-to-mid-90s. And it's true that young kids in Finland are probably more interested these days in hiphop, r&b or Jamaica sounds (reggae/dancehall), or even retro styles of funk and soul.

Probably much more interesting things in electronic music are happening elsewhere, in what could be called "post-techno" (IDM-glitch-noise-minimal-experimental-illbient-postlounge-lowercase sound-etc., even "post-rock" variants -- new music becoming influenced by the yesteryear experimentations -- different new mutations of electro & techno and so on. And how about drum'n'bass?) But the 90s type rave/techno culture of "PLUR", "Peace, Love & Pancakes"/Love Parade/Mayday, etc. is dead and gone when we have reached the year of 2004; killed by commerciality, drugs peddlers, thieving magpie media having found new interests like new rock bands recycling old styles, and of course pure boredom; and something else is busy taking their place now.