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 (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.
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.
And yet another forthcoming DC Recordings release...
Artist: Arcadion Title: Ghost Feeder Label: DC Recordings (UK) Cat. No: DCR97 Format: 12" / digital download Release Date: 1 December 2008
Press release notes from DC Recordings:
Arcadion is the new incarnation of Alan Dobson, also known as Hungryghost (with releases coming soon on Nightmares On Wax's 'Wax On' imprint) and as an erstwhile member of scratch DJ and production team Def Tex. A resident of Norfolk and more recently London, Dobson's musical journey has taken him from a childhood of dub, blue beat records and Norfolk ditch-jumping via an obsession with computer technology and sampling to arrive at the swaggering electro boogie that you find on this debut release for DC Recordings.
The title track "Ghost Feeder" comes on like a modern take on the go-go music of Trouble Funk or Tilt, following the tradition of dancefloor music fostered by Depth Charge in his formative years and therefore fitting neatly on the DC roster. These are beats aimed squarely at your pelvis with an aim to make the party move, coming to you here in their most refined and pneumatic form.
Second track "Arc" delivers more of the same quality but utilises the motifs of electro boogie -- lilting electronic melodies riding a heavyweight percussive groove, augmented by the sound of vintage synths like the Octave Kitten and the Cheetah MS6, which bring a classic edge to this dancefloor pulse, creating flavours reminiscent of Bambaataa and early New York electro at its most futuristic!
Best soundtracks are always inseparable from the films they are created for; as some prime examples Ennio Morricone's music for Sergio Leone, Bernard Herrmann's works for Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, or to pick up one personal favourite, Lalo Schifrin's sounds for Don Siegel's 1971 Dirty Harry. This is also the case with Eduard Artemyev (transcribed also as "Artemiev" or "Artemjev", b. 1937), a Russian composer best known for his electronic ambient soundtracks for Andrei Tarkovsky's films such as Solaris (1972), Zerkalo ("The Mirror", 1975) and Stalker (1979). Fitting to Tarkovsky's dream-like metaphysical films, to create his eerie transcendental sounds, citing both Johann Sebastian Bach and Indian music, Artemyev worked with the rare Russian synthesizer ANS, a photoelectronic instrument using glass discs to generate the sinewaves.
YLE Elävä Arkisto features some videoclips of DIMI, perhaps one of the first digital synthesizers in the world, which was designed in 1970 by Finnish electronic music pioneer Erkki Kurenniemi. Also part of the DIMI series was the "video organ" DIMI-O, guided with a video camera, which converted the real-time movements of performers into sounds and music. In an English-language demonstration film dancer Riitta Vainio shows off the possibilities of DIMI-O in 1971. DIMI-S (a.k.a. The Sexophone) registered through electrodes attached to performer's skin any emotional changes in him or her.
pHinnWeb has hosted a discography page for Verde, a one-man electronic project of Mika Rintala, also familiar from Circle and Ektroverde. Now there's an official site featuring among all photos of Rintala's analogue synths, his own home-made gear (featuring the famous theremin Rintala built inside a Ufox air humidifier!) and Verde's home studio, some technical specs and discography info.
Mika Rintala operating a modular synth and the Ufox theremin
Siniaalto ("Sinewave") -- a Helsinki act specialized in retro ambient sound à la Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, performed with vintage synths -- will have their new CD Kuolema ("Death") (the original release date Friday 13 April 2007, which would have been so appropriate for this one, has been changed to 20 April 2007) on Verdura Records (the label site also includes some soundclips from the album).
