Esa Kotilainen: Ajatuslapsi (1977) Now Re-Released

A treat for electronic ambient fans is provided by a long-awaited CD re-release of Esa Kotilainen's Tangerine Dream/Klaus Schulze-style solo album Ajatuslapsi ("A Thought Child") from 1977, which is now out on Love/Siboney, a company specializing in CD re-releases of the legendary Finnish label Love Records, which went bankrupt in 1979, leaving behind a large legacy in Finnnish rock, jazz, folk and also political music.

The album was originally released as an edition of 500 copies, Kotilainen playing all instruments there. Alongside Tangerine Dream, Lobsang Rampa's controversial book The Third Eye is mentioned as its inspiration, Kotilainen visualising such tracks as 'Avartuva näkemys' as a journey of Tibetan monks in a cave of stalactites.


Esa Kotilainen in 1979, introducing the electronic sounds of Moog

Esa Kotilainen (b. 1946) is known as a keyboard wizard and synth veteran, who provided his contributions to Wigwam's most popular album Nuclear Nightclub (1975), also as a member of the band's latest incarnation, which is still in business. Furthermore, Kotilainen has provided his services as a session musician for such as Tasavallan Presidentti, Jukka Tolonen, Hector, J. Karjalainen, Nils-Aslak Valkeapää and many more. He has also been a member of Neum.

Esa Kotilainen's career in electronic music started in 1974 when he expensively imported from Germany a MiniMoog, an instrument rarely seen in Finland those days. During this era Kotilainen was playing gigs on a ferry called Finnhansa, which sailed between Helsinki and Travemünde, and paid for the instrument 6.100 Finnish marks: the price of a small car those days. The first gig with Kotilainen's Minimoog was creating sound effects for the soundtrack of Spede Pasanen's film comedy Viu-hah-hah-taja (1974), and the first music recording was obviously for the solo album Robson of Frank Robson.

Kotilainen's new career as a synth wiz got him loads of offers for background music in commercials after which his career was guaranteed in progressive bands like Wigwam, who were after electronic sounds generally favoured by the prog genre. Kotilainen is also said to have in his collection a Mellotron (an analogue predecessor of samplers, using pre-recorded tape loops played with a keyboard), perhaps the only one in this country.

Ajatuslapsi CD features as bonus tracks two versions of 'Matkaaja' ("The Traveller"), a 1978 commissioned work from Kotilainen for the Finnish National Ballet. The CD booklet also includes English liner notes by Pekka Laine, where Esa Kotilainen shares his insights on the album's origins.

Artist: Esa Kotilainen
Title: Ajatuslapsi
Cat.no.: LRCD 196 (original LP: LRLP 196)
Re-release year: 2008 (original LP: 1977)
Tracklist:

1. Unisalissa ("In a dream room")
2. Avartuva näkemys ("The mind broadens")
3. Ilmassa ("In the air")

CD bonus tracks:

4. Matkaaja (1978) ("The traveller")
5. Matkaaja (1978) Kaiutettu versio (= A version with echo, 2008)

Album credits:

Esa Kotilainen plays on the album: Mini-Moog, ARP-2600, Vox StringThing, Fender Rhodes, Kouvola Casotto, kantele, Hammond B3, Leslie 251 & 145, Binson Echo, MXR 90 Phase, MXR 100 Phase, Maestro Phase Shifter, Foxx Wah Wah pedal, Indian bells, Farfisa organ, Polymoog.

Recorded by Jukka Teittinen at Alppi-studio, mixed at Finnlevy Studios, Helsinki, summer 1976.
Cover by Kari Sipilä.

CD bonus tracks recorded at Esa Kotilainen home studio.
CD remastering by Pauli Saastamoinen at Finnvox Studios, April 2008.
CD layout by Japa Mattila.
CD liner notes by Pekka Laine.

Release info @ Love

Esa Kotilainen @ Finnish Wikipedia

Ajatuslapsi @ Finnish Wikipedia

Ajatuslapsi @ Mutant Sounds

A review in Finnish by Jussi Niemi, Soundi 3/1977

Discography info @ FinnScene: The Early Years @ pHinnWeb

Kaj Chydenius

Kaj Chydenius: 'Sinua sinua rakastan' (1968, off Asfalttilampaat)

And while we are still at the topic, here is another gem from the era, 'Sinua sinua rakastan' ("You, you I love") from 1968, composed and sung by Kaj Chydenius, with lyrics by Aulikki Oksanen; from Mikko Niskanen's film Asfalttilampaat ("Asphalt lambs"), starring Eero Melasniemi and Kirsti Wallasvaara, with whom Niskanen had already worked with for Käpy selän alla.

Kaj Chydenius (b. 1939) was probably the best-known composer for the late-60s/early-to-mid-70s Finnish political song movement, whose timeless sense of melody has guaranteed the evergreen status of his works even to our own apolitical/right-wing politics days.

The lyrics in this one are nearly psychedelic, I think: "Miten huutaa minulle avaruus / Miten kirkuvat tähdet ohimoni läpi / Miten itkevät lapset maailman rannoilla / Ja merien yllä savuavat sydämet" (As a quickie translation: "How space yells to me / how the stars scream through my temples / How the children cry on the shores of the world / And over the seas smoulder the hearts").

Vesa-Matti Loiri rehearsing Lapualaisooppera with Kaj Chydenius (1966)

All Kaj Chydenius search results @ YouTube



Kaj Chydenius in the late 1960s, one of "partaradikaalit" ("bearded radicals") as Finnish leftists were called then


A scene from Asfalttilampaat, with Eero Melasniemi and Kirsti Wallasvaara

Kristiina Halkola and Käpy selän alla (1966)

Kristiina Halkola: 'Laulu rakastamisen vaikeudesta' ("A song about the difficulty of loving"; off Käpyn selän alla, 1966)


Creatures: 'Where Can She Be' (off Käpy selän alla, 1966)

After a typically rainy summer season, everything seems still quiet on Finnish electronic dance music front, so pHinnWeb goes on its nostalgia trip of yesteryear's domestic popular culture. Enjoy, or at least, bear with me.

Käpy selän alla, directed by Mikko Niskanen in 1966 created a sensation in Finland. (The title literally translates as "A pinecone under one's back", though the official English film title for some reason is Skin, Skin, also known as Under Your Skin, probably trying to cash off the boom of "erotic" European art films of the time, though by today's standards eroticism here seems extremely tame.) A simple, slightly comical story about two young couples' camping trip to countryside (climaxing in a drunken sojourn to see the Creatures playing at a forest dancehall) and reflecting the typical problems of baby-boomer generation, the film (largely improvised from the original script of Marja-Leena Mikkola) was a huge success and was widely received as a new beginning for Finnish cinema, forgetting the old conventions of traditional theatrical "Suomi-Filmi" style and representing a new generation of Finnish film-makers, with Niskanen's contemporaries such as Risto Jarva; taking its cues from influences such as French New Wave and international auteurs like Ingmar Bergman. Starring Kristiina Halkola, Kirsti Wallasvaara, Pekka Autiovuori and Eero Melasniemi, who were at the time of the film still fresh-faced and unknown actor students but would subsequently become household names familiar from TV and film.

Mikko Niskanen (1929 - 1990) was a film director and actor, who had studied film-making in the Soviet Union, debuting in 1962 with Pojat ("Boys"), a film both comical and tragic about the relations of young boys, their elders and German soldiers during Finnish Continuation War of the early 40s, starring young Vesa-Matti Loiri in his memorable first role. With his late-60s films Käpy selän alla, Lapualaismorsian and Asfalttilampaat Niskanen took on the urbane themes of young baby-boomer adults, though nowadays it's the naturalistic rural tragedy Kahdeksan surmanluotia ("Eight Deadly Shots") of 1972, which is considered his most lasting masterpiece.



The singing actress Kristiina Halkola (b. 1945), with her beautiful dark looks and memorable pout, would also be seen in many other films of this era, such as Niskanen's Lapualaismorsian and Jörn Donner's Mustaa valkoisella (she would later sue Donner, who had infamously used a body double for her in the film's erotic scenes) and participate in Finnish leftist political song movement (in the Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill cabaret song tradition, with such lyricist-vocalists as Aulikki Oksanen, singing groups called with names such as Agit Prop or heavily wailing chanteuses like Kaisa Korhonen and her then-husband Kaj Chydenius, perhaps the movement's best known composer), recording for Love Records an album Täytyy uskaltaa ("One has to dare") in 1971. Halkola's singing performances for the late-60s TV shows in the style of the political Orvokki-Kabaree stirred controversy, with then-provocative songs concerning such subjects as mocking the twenty richest families of Finland or interpreting an old church hymn as a go-go version. Kristiina Halkola also participated in leftist politics as a member of Finnish Communist Party and its later incarnation Demokraattinen Vaihtoehto. Her children with Eero Melasniemi have continued as actors and musicians. Nowadays Kristiina Halkola is considered an icon of the heavily politicized "Taistolaisuus" era of the late 1960s and 1970s. The politics may not have stood the test of time but the best songs created through it well have; like their more capitalist contemporaries, Finnhits iskelmäs, enjoying a huge nostalgia movement in the 21st century Finland.

Mikko Niskanen in Finnish:

Kahdeksan surmanluotia clips @ Yle Elävä Arkisto

Wikipedia

Mikko Niskanen in English:

Skin, Skin @ Siffblog

Eight Deadly Shots @ Siffblog

More video clips of songs by Kristiina Halkola:

'Ei puolikasta' (audio only)

'Jos rakastat' (audio only)

'Kätten työtä' (audio only)

'Laulu 20 perheestä' (1969)

'Laulu siirtotyöläisestä' (audio only)

'Sinun lapsesi'

'Suomalainen tulee toimeen omillaan' (1969, with Vesa-Matti Loiri)

'Tartu hetkeesi' (audio only)

'Virsi 639' (1968, with Liisa-Maija Laaksonen)

Käpy selän alla links:

IMDB

Suomalaisen elokuvan festivaali (in Finnish)

Pajakkakino (in Finnish)

Elonet (in Finnish)



Aulikki Oksanen, Kirsti Wallasvaara and Kristiina Halkola back then

Blues Section: 'Semi-Circle Solitude' (1968)

Blues Section: 'Semi-Circle Solitude' (1968)


Blues Section: 'Cherry Cup-Cake Twist' (1968)


Blues Section: 'Hey Hey Hey' (1967)


Blues Section: 'Call Me On Your Telephone' (1967)

'Semi-Circle Solitude' is probably my all-time favourite track from Blues Section, a late-60s Finnish rhythm & blues/psychedelic band fronted by a great British ex-pat singer-songwriter, Jim Pembroke (later of Wigwam, another band worth checking out and don't let the "progessive rock" tag put you off, because there's some memorable songwriting here, too). The film excerpts for 'Semi-Circle Solitude' and 'Cherry Cup-Cake Twist' are from Jaakko Pakkasvirta's documentary film Eläköön nuoruus ("Viva Youth", 1968). 'Hey Hey Hey' was used in Mikko Niskanen's 1967 film Lapualaismorsian, in a sequence depicting how students in Helsinki celebrate Mayday.

YouTube also has Blues Section's 'Kuka kertoisi minulle?' ("Who would tell me?"; as vocalist Pepe Willberg, formerly of The Jormas), from Timo Bergholm's drama film Punahilkka ("Little Red Riding Hood"), another movie from 1968. Furthermore, there's a clip of 'End of a Poem', from their 1996 comeback gig.

Lyrics @ Mikko Meriläinen's excellent Blues Section/Wigwam site

60s Garage Rock & Psychedelia in Finland @ pHinnWeb

And as bonus, more Jim Pembroke songwriting, 'Simple Human Kindness' from Wigwam's "deep pop" album Nuclear Nightclub (1975); this studio live is from 1976:


Wigwam: 'Simple Human Kindness' (1976, off Pop-Liisa TV show)

Love Records: Otto Donnerin ja M.A. Nummisen haastattelu

Löytyy täältä.

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More Arctic Hysteria / Son of Arctic Hysteria / Love Records History

More Arctic Hysteria / Son of Arctic Hysteria is a new 2-CD compilation on Siboney label about the history of Finnish avantgarde music of the 1970s and 80s, which is a continuation to the 2001 CD Arktinen hysteria - Suomi-avantgarden esipuutarhureita (which I reviewed here). Featuring Jimi Tenor, Läjä Äijälä and early Mika Vainio (Pan sonic), The Sperm activists Mattijuhani Koponen and Pekka Airaksinen, Edward Vesala at his wildest, Kari Peitsamo, Kauko Röyhkä and Sleepy Sleepers at their most experimental and many other musical alchemists from Pekka Streng to Reinin Myrkky -- as a bonus some no-holds-barred sound experiments of Kaj Chydenius and M.A. Numminen from the 60s.

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[Love Records: their logo was somehow suggestive, eh?]

There is also a new book on the history of the legendary Finnish label Love Records -- Siboney is the label which re-releases on CD the works of this label which went bankrupt in 1979. The author, Miska Rantanen, has his own blog (in Finnish) concerning the book here.