Finland's Sonic Temple Assassins has a new 3" CD-R, called III (limited edition of 50!), out on French Ruralfaune label, featuring the tracks 'Kesän keijut' ("Fairies of summer"), 'Kosmos' and 'Kuuma asfaltti' ("Hot asphalt"). 'Kesän keijut' features some Krautrockish influences, with deep orchestral string synths, 'Kosmos' is an Tangerine Dream-esque excursion (recorded live at Mayday! Rock!! Crazyness!!! [sic] home festival in Tampere on Mayday Eve 2007, and also featuring one pHinn...) and 'Kuuma asfaltti' makes me somehow think of Spacemen 3. You can listen one track from this CD-R at Ruralfaune's MySpace site.
Ke 29.8. NOLLAssa Odj TG soittaa Brasiliasta ja latinalaisesta Amerikasta kovalla vaivalla roudattuja lattarivinyylejä 60-70-luvuilta: bossanovaa, jazzia, salsaa... välillä vähän progempaa.
Wed 29 Aug @ NOLLA, Helsinki Odj TG (Sähkö Recordings) plays 60s and 70s Latino vinyls brought with some considerable trouble directly from Brazil and South America: bossanova, jazz, salsa... occasionally also something a bit more prog.
múm is an Icelandic experimental group formed in 1997, known for some interesting albums like Finally We Are No One (2002). This beautifully disturbing video (a fair warning should be added here if you're a sensitive person) is for their single "They Made Frogs Smoke 'Til They Exploded", preceding the new album Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy (24 September '07).
Now when the world has just barely recovered from Danny & Armi's 'I Wanna Love You Tender', more disco horrors from the 70s Finland are offered by Gregorius, whose 1979 Finnish rendition of Village People's 'YMCA' (originally from TV's comedy show Hepskukkuu) has gathered nearly half a million downloads at YouTube. Featuring on synth the band leader Olli Ahvenlahti (whose 'Grandma's Rocking Chair' was a surprise acid jazz hit in the early 90s), on bass Pekka Pohjola(!), on guitar Heikki Laurila, one of the most employed studio musicians in Finland and on drums Tapani "Nappi" Ikonen.
Aamulehti reports Gregorius is one Esko Nick, who these days is a literature expert working as a librarian in Espoo, also having as a side project his own dance band called Redago (who consider switching their name to Gregorius now). Esko Nick tells the idea of doing 'YMCA' in Finnish came from Pentti Järvinen, the producer of Hepskukkuu. Järvinen had been especially impressed with Esko Nick's peculiar dance movements during one of his gigs, which prompted the producer to take on Nick as a vocalist for the 'YMCA'/'NMKY' sketch featuring Olli Ahvenlahti's band and Jari Samulin's dancers (Samulin is also responsible for the choreography of the infamous Danny and Armi video). Despite Mr. Järvinen's enthusiasm, this performance only remained a one-off, since Finnish TV audiences didn't exactly warm up to the gymnastics of Gregorius, so it took nearly 30 years and the magic of YouTube for this lost "gem" to be discovered.
Teema, a digital channel of YLE (Finnish Broadcasting Corporation) will show during this fall some Communist-era science fiction films of East Germany's DEFA-Studio from the 1960s and 1970s in its Kino Into series. Obviously some of these were inspired by Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (and apparently Tarkovsky's Solaris too), but appropriately depicting an utopian future world where socialism has overcome. Der Schweigende Stern (1960) is based on Stanislaw Lem's 1951 book Astronauci, and the film was also released in 1962 as American dubbed version called First Spaceship On Venus. Lem disowned the movie.
Artist: Kompleksi Title: Sister Longlegs Dances In The Disco Format: 12" vinyl LP (limited edition of 500) Cat.no.: VERDU-24 Label: Verdura Records (Finland) Date: 15 October 2008
Tracklist: A1. (I Ain't No) Lovechild A2. Spiders In The Sky A3. Porno Tampere A4. Gothic Robots A5. SWT NG FCK THNG A6. Metal Sky B1. Bioluminescence B2. Moscow 1980 B3. Sara Pain B4. The Only Star In My Sky
And this is what Supersounds tells about the release:
Tamperelaisen duon (Erkki "pHinn" Rautio & Mika "Mike Not" Paju) debyyttialbumi. -Yhtyeen oma kuvaus musiikista on "eclectro", eli monimuotoista ja mihinkään selkeään kategoriaan kuulumatonta konemusiikkia. -Omintakeista ja taatusti hämmentävää, tarttuvia kappaleita unohtamatta. -Laulaja Erkki pyörittää maailmanlaajuisesti tunnettua pHinnweb.org -konemusiikkisivustoa. -Lo-fi -estetiikka on kansia myöten hyvin hallussa!
I will add later on more info about the shops where to get it and also the international distribution that is in plans too. For now, you can find the album for example at
Meanwhile, if you live outside of Finland and want to get your hands on the album now, I recommend you contact Verdura directly for more. It's a shining black vinyl with a limited edition of 500, so act while the stock lasts!
KOMPLEKSI FEEDBACK, MEDIA SOUNDBITES, COMMENTS FROM OTHER ARTISTS AND FANS
On the whole Sister Longlegs Dances In The Disco album:
"I'm pleased to see that Kompleksi have completed the new album Sister Longlegs Dances In The Disco... It continues the strange and dark Kompleksi sound which is impossible to define."
"The album has strong elements of electro with the drum sounds, synths kicking in for the track but pHinn's vocals make for the unique end product. Some tracks are jagged, with the vocals heavily over the synths which create the truly dark sound distinctive of Kompleksi."
"A terrific overall feel to the album that will sound like no other album you have ever heard. Its hard and heavy at times and wonderfully dark." - Peter Sykes, Electrosynth blog (UK)
On '(I Ain't No) Lovechild' / 'Moscow 1980' 7" single (Lal Lal Lal Records, Finland, 2005):
"Complete with jittery bubbling bass-synth lines and vocoder, these are 2 fine European retro-electronic-pop songs.” – Boa Melody Bar (UK)
"I like it very much, some beautiful singing going on there, very cool!" - Catriona Shaw a.k.a. Miss Le Bomb, (Scotland/Germany)
On '(I Ain't No) Lovechild' track:
"'What the Hell are you staring at?' sneers a voice at the start of '(I Ain't No) Lovechild' by Kompleksi, which pretty much sets the tone for the rest of this song: a cynical, whiney, complain-y voice (that sounds like Devo after they finally lost their virginity) over crumpled H. League/Robert Rental tape-drums and synthmooosh-bass and splatchy percussives. There's a jagged, art-punk feel to this: it's charity-shop, not cat-walk...I love the way they've hoovered all the glam out of synthpop and drawn a felt-tip sneer and a Mona Lisa moustache on its face." - Kek, Kid Shirt blog (UK)
"There is a spooky Ramones-esque quality to the track '(I Ain't No) Lovechild', the lyrics tell a story of an unloved one, beaten & neglected by his mother and life in general. Delivered in deadpan fashion, it's wickedly entertaining and deliciously cruel." - Ann Shenton, Zoot magazine (Portugal)
"[I Ain't No] Lovechild läßt noch den Einfluß von SUICIDE erahnen. Rhythmisch-tanzbarer Low-Fi No-Wave. pHinns Gesang versucht sich mit dem Alan Vegas zu messen - zumindest in der ersten Hälfte des Liedes, bevor er kapituliert. Tribut und Parodie gehen hier Hand in Hand. Textlich wird wohl die versuchte Aufarbeitung einer nicht einfachen Kindheit geschildert, auch hier ist man sich nicht sicher, wie ernst das Ganze gemeint ist." - Richard K., NonPop (Germany)
"It is charming -- especially those wildcat yelps on the ‘Lovechild’ turnarounds." - Larry "Fuzz-O" Dolman, Blastitude (US)
"Kompleksi (Finland) are the Ramones on synths" - Likwuid Stylez, Shejay.net (UK)
On 'Porno Tampere' track:
"I still love [the] track 'Porno Tampere' very much!" - Gerhard Potuznik a.ka. G.D. Luxxe, Angelika Koehlermann Records (Austria)
On 'Moscow: 1980' track
“It sounds like it ought to sound like Telex, but opts instead for some sort of parallel universe rewrite of US foreign policy, aided by vocoders, clipped synthetik beats and Daniel Miller's dusty old Korg. It has a strange, twisted, shimmery beauty as it cruises the red-light district of Helsinki with a limp... imagine if Swell Maps had mugged Depeche Mode for their clothes and ended up on TOTP. Yeeeah!"
"What? Ever? Happened? To? Your? Dreams?" asks the vocalist, on the outro. For a moment, he sounds close to tears. Or drunk." - Kek, Kid Shirt blog (UK)
"'Moscow 1980' is the hit single destined to rocket up the charts, if it's not on high rotation on MTV in three months then you can spank me HARD. Even if it is, you can still spank me HARD. This is the perfect tune to have in your ultra-cool record crate next to your Finnish version of 'Moscow Moscow (Volga, Volga)." - Tim Bray a.k.a. Casionova (Australia)
"Its not at all predictable, but then not so dark to lose the warmth of the synths which sound really retro, but with a nice edge that makes it a special track." - Peter Sykes, ElectroSynth blog (UK)
"To let you know that 'Moscow 1980' was one of the best songs of 2003, actually of the last years... the OMD style might be the best. [pHinn's] vocals reminisced my girlfriend of Ian Curtis!" - Juho Pätäri (Finland)
On 'Sara Pain' track:
"I like the 'Sara Pain' track very much!" - Danny Wolfers a.k.a. Legowelt (Holland)
"That track is deeply touching in how fragile and open it is. Few would dare." - Kassen, Bunker Records (Holland)
On Kompleksi:
"I really like the vocals and music as well, pure own style... More music like this on MTV and on the radio, the people need it, but don't realize it in a 'perfect' world like this..." - Lukas Pettersson a.k.a. Luke Eargoggle, Stilleben Records (Sweden)
"I'm listening to Kompleksi now, it's very entertaining. Really nice, sounds like you guys had loads of fun. You must have kicked the Prozac." - Melissa Logan / Chicks On Speed (Germany)
"Wow, nice tracks from Kompleksi! It's like Residents, Flipper and Moroder all trying to fit into the same pair of swimtrunks! Great shit. pHinn has inspired and continues to inspire with his great website, labels and projects. Rock on brothers!" – Magas, Ersatz Audio etc. (Chicago, USA)
"Kompleksi is what pop wants to be... My two cents? Vocals are perfect. [pHinn's] voice sounds how my heart feels. Spot on. Intonations are magically simple. Better music could not be made to support the vox, so pass it it on. Can't wait for a full length. From a fan in Brooklyn" - Jason Watts (New York City, USA)
The second Monsters of Pop festival of Tampere, 10-12 August 2007, offered many cultish goodies for discerning connoisseurs, providing some sorely needed alternative to the otherwise mostly boring Finnish festival summer, with all those jaded Suomirock and metal bands circulating at every other domestic event dedicated to stinking portaloos, combat drinking and intoxicated brawls.
Here are some personal favourites as witnessed at Yo-Talo, one of the gigs venues alongside Artturi and Laterna: alas, the latter two I had no more energy to visit myself, and perhaps better so, because spending three nights only at Yo-Talo made me feel afterwards some physical strain and bodily decay... Anyway, kudos to all at Monsters of Pop organisation for setting this thing up, and also getting Mr. pHinn in, which added some welcomed sparks of light to this summer I could personally well have lived without otherwise. Already looking forward to MoP 2008!
Kukka's long-awaited comeback gig featured a very excited crowd. I used to describe their music as "Velvet Underground meets Kraftwerk", and though this description must be grossly misleading, I hope it at least offers some pointers to their melancholic indie pop laced with some electronics. Kukka disappeared from the scene in 2001 but had already managed to gather a considerable cult reputation through their gigs and demos spreading from hand to hand, and obviously that memory has not faded, which could be witnessed with the encore song 'Chabom' with a strangely serene, even church-like atmosphere in the audience. Obviously the Helmilevyt label is going to release Kukka's old demos soon, so you might be able to hear yourself what the fuss was all about. You can listen to such old favourites heard during the gig as 'Hey Mr. DJ', 'Hot Light' and (my own fave track) 'Machine' on Kukka's MySpace site.
K-X-P: spacey excursions meeting electronic funk, which briefly visited being on the verge of prog-rock but fortunately no 20-minute drum solos were heard in the end. The line-up consisted of Timo Kaukolampi and Tuomo Puranen, both familiar from Op:l Bastards, accompanied by the live drumming of Tomi Leppänen, the real Stakhanovian hero of labour who also appeared at the festival with Aavikko (not to talk about his work with Circle, whose offshoot Rättö and Lehtisalo I unfortunately missed this year). I really enjoyed this gig with its psychedelic overtones too, making me think of some DC Recordings acts like The Emperor Machine or Giallos Flame.
Studio: I had no earlier experience with this band from the West Coast of Sweden, but what I heard was for me pounding funkish indie pop very much reminiscent of early 90s Manchester bands like Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. I mentioned this to one of the band after the gig, which he was not at all displeased to hear. Nice throbbing lights for the stage show too, though I was glad for not being an epilectic.
Pluxus, also from Sweden, visited Tampere for the third time, and had adopted a more laptop-oriented sound since I last heard them. Whereas their music used to sound for me like home-grown electro, with their current line-up of three it was now more sleek, with touches of pounding techno-house and very danceable.
Martin Rev, the keyboardist for New York's legendary Suicide must have been for many one of the most expected acts of Monsters of Pop. His one-man show consisted of very lengthy tracks made out of loops, including also some Afro-Cuban sounds, something that sounded like an old Roy Orbison backing track, one backing track from Suicide's American Supreme but added with new vocals which Rev sang with his husky voice. Wearing a sleeveless Batman comics T-shirt, red leather pants and huge reflecting ski glasses, Martin Rev's keyboard technique was a sight to see too, featuring karate chops, playing clusters with his fists and doing some quick sweeps through the keys as if they had been potter's clay to be moulded. I heard Rev's performance had quite divided people's opinions, but what I enjoyed here was that totally uncompromising attitude of his. After the gig I got to visit Mr. Rev at his own private backroom at the upstairs of Yo-Talo to change a few quick words (and to slip him some of our own music, the shameless wannabe that I am, including our live version of 'Ghost Rider' with Sonic Temple Assassins) with the living legend, who seemed to be even Zen-like calm and relaxed, with those ever-present sunglasses never leaving his face.
Aavikko's extensive touring along the years in Finland and Europe seems to bear fruit now since the floor was totally crowded with dancing people almost going berserk, and as encore was heard their perhaps biggest hit, 'Viitostie', paying homage to Kraftwerk's 'Autobahn'. Wearing grey terylene slacks and black shirts, Aavikko ("Desert") looked and sounded like a parody of Finnish dancehall "humppa" crowd, but their ecstatic organ instrumentals have stealthily added a more electronic sound, making them distinctly different from the drunken iconoclasts like Eläkeläiset.
And some brief clips from the last year's Monsters of Pop:
I recently found out there's a MySpace page for Advanced Art. AA were a pioneering Tampere electronic/EBM/industrial techno act who were together from 1985 to 1995. The line-up consisted of Pasi "Jana" Jantunen (voice & words) and Petja "Vince" Valasvaara (music & machines), and their assorted cohorts. They released a couple of singles and EPs, and one longplay called Product for Poko Records in 1993.
I've had an Advanced Art page at pHinnWeb for some years, featuring a biography written by Jana (with some nice self-ironic touches which you can also find from their MySpace site) and their discography. The page is now updated with some band and record sleeve graphics sent to me by Jana, and the MySpace site tells Advanced Art "is now working on a compilation, possibly with some new remixes and 07 versions". Hats off to these pioneers.
A long-awaited return! Helsinki's Op:l Bastards has remastered and re-released their 2001 album The Job with four bonus tracks. Also, some Op:l Bastards comeback gigs are now promised...
Artist: Op:l Bastards Title: The Job Format: CD Label: Jupiter / Lefta Cat.No: JUP 027CD Year: 2007
Tracklist:
1 Funking 2 Tantor 3 Spraybeat (Eagle Mix) 4 Scorpius 5 Deal 6 Masqued Lover (Andante) 7 At Tuamo's 8 Jet Black Man 9 Sinulle (For You) 10 Sagittarius III
Bonus tracks:
11. Money 12. Don't Bring Me Down 13. Brewski (Snake Blissken 1996-Mix) 14. Telephone
Tony Wilson, the founder of Manchester's legendary Factory Records, which gave the world such influential acts as Joy Division and New Order, has died at the age of 57 due to complications arising from kidney cancer. Incidentally, Finnish TV4 showed a while ago Michael Winterbottom's amusing film 24 Hour Party People (2002), a semi-documentary dramatization of Manchester scene in 1977-1997 where among all, played by Steve Coogan, Tony Wilson meets God (who is no one else than Tony Wilson, naturally).
It's been forty years since Pink Floyd's debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn came out on the 5th of August 1967, mostly being the expression of the personal vision of the late lamented frontman Syd Barrett (1946-2006). Whenever asked for people's all-time favourite albums, this has been my own No. 1 choice for years. Always a joyous shock for the people who perceive the Floyd merely as a vehicle for sombre prog-rock ego trips of the Roger Waters-era and The Wall.
I first heard 'Interstellar Overdrive' in a documentary film about the making of The Beatles' Sergeant Pepper and the music scene of summer 1967, now also known as the "Summer of Love" (well, the people who went through the Egypt-Israeli Six-Day War in June '67 must have experienced it a bit differently).
In a black & white film excerpt I saw a bunch of weird guys in sunglasses playing that hypnotic, suggestive tune while their giant shadows flickered on the wall in strobelights. The tune (in fact, a combination of Love's rendition of 'Little Red Book' and the theme music of an old British TV show Steptoe & Son!) instantly caught me and haunted me like an insistent glitch in my nervous system; I had to know more about what was happening here. Soon I got to my hands a vinyl version of The Piper..., and that was like an explosion in my cortex. This was truly strange, even scary music.
AMM's lengthy improvisations, The Beatles, The Byrds, John Coltrane's jazz, Kenneth Grahame's children's book The Wind in the Willows (which gave the album its title), I-Ching, J.R.R. Tolkien, Stockhausen, The Who... all condensed into one lysergic free-for-all, Barrett's guitar painting the soundscape with spacey echoes from his Binson delay unit, Rick Wright's "Turkish Delight" organ and his jazzy piano licks, Roger Waters' pulsating bass and Nick Mason's turbulent drumming anchoring the whole madness down. Garage rock grooves of 'Lucifer Sam' and stereo panning to and fro going mad at the end of the album version of 'Interstellar Overdrive'.
The Floyd also drove their producer Norman "Hurricane" Smith mad, who afterwards called the album sessions "sheer hell" and accused the band of the lack of musical proficiency -- so pure psychedelic punk, then! Heavy tape edits are obvious in many places but only positively adding to the sense of psychedelic fragmentation and its time lapse experience. Sheer sonic fantasy, both futuristic and mythical, which always takes me into some other dimension outside of time and space; a realm of interstellar (overdrive) journeys, mystical cats called Lucifer Sam and fairy stories where a thousand misty riders climb up higher once upon a time...
There will be this month out a 3-CD 40th anniversary edition, including both stereo and mono mixes of the album, plus all Barrett-era Floyd singles and some out-takes (including an alternative lyrics version of Mathilda Mother) -- most of this material owned by fans and collectors already, and still no sign of the official release of such shelved-since-the-time-of-their-recording Barrett/Floyd gems as 'Vegetable Man', 'Scream Thy Last Scream' or 'She Was A Millionaire' (most of which, however, have found their way to the hands of aficionados as bootlegs or "Have You Got It Yet?" downloads).
The 40th anniversary edition also features a facsimile of Syd Barrett's 1965 Fart Enjoy book of his art, collages and text, even though for "legal reasons" omitting one page. You can see it here, though:
Mutant Sounds now mentions and offers downloads of Tididii Tididii Tididiididii (LTJ-05/06), a 2003 release on Hannu Haahti's CD-R label 267 Lattajjjaa. With 160 minutes of music from psychedelic folk to improvisation to electronic noodlings, this compilation was like a Who's Who of Finnish underground music scene of the time, with some international guest stars included too.
And oh, yours truly and his mighty(?) Yamaha Portasound can be heard there also, as part of No Scene (Disc 2, track 25: '230801'): the track is an electronic-ish improvisation jam taped at No Scene club in August 2001 at Tampere's Telakka.
No Scene was another sadly short-lived electronic music club, run by American ex-pat and electronic musician Nathan Siter who lives here in Tampere (check his 12" on German label Zhark). I recall the people playing on the track were at least Nathan, Joonas of Toiminto, Perttu Piirto of Ever Had (another criminally underrated Tampere electronic musician!) also playing Syd Barrett-like electric guitar there, pHinn and some other people (including a female vocalist) whose names elude me now. This ensemble consisted of different artists and DJs playing at the club, who gathered together at the end of the night to do this jam session, on a "free-for-all" basis. Because I remember the pained expressions on some punters' faces who had to listen to our extended improvisation... To save your own nerves, the track is edited for the compilation.
Kompleksi's debut album Sister Longlegs Dances In The Disco can now be purchased as digital download from iTunes! With the cult favourite tracks 'Porno Tampere', '(I Ain't No) Lovechild', 'Moscow 1980', 'Sara Pain', 'Gothic Robots' and more!
Get the info on how to get the album by clicking here.
(Note: you must have iTunes downloaded to your computer or be an iPod user before you can purchase the album.)
And keep tuned for more info also on other digital download stores where to get this in the future.
