Tonight: Die Elektronische Walpurgisnacht!

Tonight's the night! Vade retro, Kixusatanas!

According to Central European traditions, on the Walpurgisnacht evil dwells on Earth and witches celebrate their sabbats. Here in Finland the nocturnal streets will be filled with scary, lustful and projectile-vomiting zombies wearing grotesque masks, overalls, white caps and balloons; and there are everywhere Satanic orgies disguised as fertility rites, where wicked pagan gods Bacchus, Eros and Pan are worshipped. Hence, the electro priests Mike Not and pHinn exorcise demons tonight at Apadana with the powerful magick of electric boogie, techno sacraments, IDM enlightenment and synth juju! Do you want to be saved or do you want to be cursed? The salvation lies there tonight at Apadana!

-> -> ->

EcLECTROLOUNGE 9: Die Elektronische Walpurgisnacht!

Saturday 30 April 2005
@ Apadana, Suvantokatu 7, Tampere
20:00 h ->
tickets 2 eur
age limit 18

Is everybody in? The ceremony is about to begin! ELECTRIC BOOGIE!

Vappu a.k.a. Walpurgis a.k.a. Mayday, that noble fest of labourers and the orgastic ceremony of Bacchus, Eros and Pan is celebrated this year by the Walpurgisnacht Electro Special at Apadana (ex-Green Grass) of Tampere, Finland! Nu and old electro, a bit of techno, IDM, disco, old skool, synth and spacepop, as presented by the Kompleksi DJs Mike Not and pHinn.

Reindeer Disko 3 by DJ pHinn

Tere! Here's even more stuff for you to listen...

Kohviradio, a Webcast "station" of Estonian Kohvi Records, runs now another DJ selection (unmixed) from me. Click http://www.kohviradio.com/tunes/requests/index.html, then "reindeer disko 3 by dj phinn" on the menu, and finally "Listen".

This works with the same principle as jukeboxes, so you may have to wait for your request for a while... (Earlier)

Reindeer Disko 3 by DJ pHinn

1. Jack Nitzche feat. Merry Clayton: Performance (Moog: Mick Jagger!)
2. Stereo Total: Orange Mécanique
3. Kompleksi: (I Ain't No) Lovechild
4. Citizen Omega: Mr. Robot
5. Pan sonic: Pakoisvoima / Fugal Force
6. The Byrds: Moog Raga
7. Large Number: Chronosynclasticinfundibulation
8. Girls On Film feat. Ana Laura Aláez: Star F****R
9. Hungry Wives: Spiders
10. Fredi: Kun rakkaus voittaa (pHinnedit)
11. Kai Hyttinen vs Roger That: Nosta lippu salkoon
12. New York City Survivors: World of Madness
13. Casiomatik: Solarium
14. Kevin Blechdom: Boob-A-Q
15. Avarus: Donkkaavaräppäävä kaalikoira
16. TV-Resistori: (?/live)
17. Nu Science: Filter

Thanks and apologies to everyone whose tracks I've used here :)

A list of all soundfiles you can at the moment hear through pHinnWeb

An Interesting Underwear Design

This one probably requires no further comment...

[MP3] DJ pHinn exp.noiseclectronic mix @ Syntesia

Here is my "exp.noiseclectronic mix" @ Syntesia last Sunday.

60 minutes, including:

Virtalähde - Speedranch^Jansky Noise - Massaccesi vs
Club Telex Noise Ensemble - Sähkökvartetti - Merzbow -
The Speed Freak - The Bug - Cobra Killer - Kid606 -
The Sperm - J.O. Mallander - Mika Vainio vs Fennesz -
V/VM - etc. - and a lady who would rather remain nameless...

See the full tracklist here.

A list of all soundfiles you can hear through pHinnWeb at the moment.

Grey Gardens

"Two roads diverged in a yellow road
And sorry I could not travel both.
...
I took the one less travelled by.
And that has made all the difference."

-Robert Frost

"Why wouldn't you do a film of me and my sister?", proposed Lee Bouvier (who was a member of the Bouvier family, part of the American "aristocracy" or pseudo-royalty) to the documentary film maker brothers Albert and David Maysles in the early 1970s. This said sister happened to be one Jacqueline (Bouvier) Kennedy Onassis, a.k.a. Jackie O., the widow of an assasinated President of the United States, now the wife to Greek billionaire Aristoteles Onassis.

The Maysles brothers pondered this offer for a while, but, to the horror of Lee and Jackie, ended up filming the lives of their aunt Edith and their cousin Edie, a mother and daughter living in a crumbling 28-room mansion called Grey Gardens in East Hampton, Long Island, a summer paradise for the rich.

Grey Gardens had reached a notorious reputation in newspapers when local officials had declared the decaying mansion a health risk, where the eccentric pair Edith Bouvier Beale (1894-1976), nearing 80, and her 56-year old daughter Edie (1917-2002) lived amidst the squalor with cats and raccoons.

Grey Gardens was raided and nearly condemned by the local government, when Jackie Onassis herself intervented and promised to take care of the cleaning up and renovation of the mansion. Following this, the majority of the film Grey Gardens (1975) -- recently shown on Finnish TV2 -- following the daily lives of Edith and Edie was shot in a six week period and cut together from 70 hours of material.

The Maysles brothers represented "Direct Cinema", an American variation of French cinema verité -- and an obvious predecessor to today's "reality TV" -- where the basic goal was authenticity and presenting everything "as it was". Their best known earlier works had been Salesman (1969), following the life of a Bible salesman, and Gimme Shelter (1970), a documentary of the Rolling Stones' ill-fated Altamont concert in December 1969.

This film is touching in all its funny and sad parts following each other. These are American trash glamour characters familiar from Andy Warhol's and John Waters' films, though we are talking about real, living people here, not any seedy caricatures. Sometimes it all looks like a piece of psychodrama or even absurd theatre, with characters exchanging non-sequiturs or talking all the time over each other, and constantly bickering. They browse old family albums, listen to 1930s shellac records or to a radioshow with a weird preacher, eat ice cream, and keep picking on each other and playing mind games. Edie feeds toast to the raccoons living in their attic, while her queen mother Edith stays in her bed surrounded by cats, trying on summer hats. And talking about men all the time, of course: husbands who ran away, lackeys, lovers spurned, Edie's would-have-been lovers who were allegedly chased away by her mother, which Edie is still bitter about.

Along the years, this film has gathered for itself a campy cult following, though behind the kooky, trashy surface I think there can be found a serious, multi-faceted study on the passing of time and the human situation. There are so many unanswered questions here, after all; why did the women end up living in this messy mansion all alone, was it an outcome of some series of tragic events the film only hints at...?

Still, Edie and Edith are not total recluses; they host a modest 79th birthday party for Edith, they employ a black gardener, and they are often visited by Jerry, a young handyman whom Edie calls "the Marble Faun," after the Nathaniel Hawthorne story. Edith thinks Marble Faun -- though over thirty years younger than her daughter -- fancies Edie, but Edie finds it hard to disguise her suspicion for the boy, obviously jealous for the attention her mother shows for this young, raggedy, long-haired drifter.

It is the artistic, Robert Frost-quoting homemade diva Edie, a self-described s-t-a-u-n-c-h character -- in whom the outsider art ethos seems to be personifying -- who steals the show here; in fact, the film eventually made a cult figure out of her. The outsider fashion guru Edie's (she used to be an aspiring actress and ex-model, after all) garderobe seems to be endless, when she runs her own private fashion show for the camera: among them, a clingy brown turtleneck, scarves, a pair of sun pants pinned around her waist as a makeshift skirt and something resembling a sheer nun's wimple on her head. Inspired by Edie, photographer Steven Meisel shot a fashion pictorial for Italian Vogue in 1999, featuring an image on the magazine's cover of a model decked out in Edie's signature "revolutionary costume" of a sweater wrapped around her head, tacked in place by an ornate brooch.

Edie is a like a little child who obviously has never had a chance to grow up in the shadow of her dominating mother Edith, who seems to treat Edie as her servant; their relationship seems to be both symbiotic and short of sadomasochistic. This is apparent every time Edie tries to draw all attention to herself, in turns flirting with the Maysles brothers behind camera, teasing, dancing, posing, and trying to wind her mother up the best she can. She compensates for her unrealised dreams by living in a vivid make-believe world or in memories or fantasies of what it could have been: "It's very difficult to keep the line between the past and the present". Edith and Edie seem both prefer their past to the reality where they find themselves now.

Grey Gardens: a tribute site

Some stills

Goddess Edie

An article about the Maysles brothers

IMDB entry

Environmental Activism, Of Sorts...

Unlike other fellow Scandinavians such as Swedes and Danes, Norwegians are often thought to be uptight about sex. Not so with this young couple, Tommy Hol Ellingsen and Leona Johansson, who are members of the environmental organization Fuck for Forest. They have sex in public and make porn -- which they distribute through the Website -- in order to raise money to save the rainforests. Originally they received money from the Norwegian government to start up their "Webshop to support the environment". The first application they sent out stated "T-shirts and similar items". The idea matured, and this is the product, even though it deviated from the first drafts...

According to the organization's Website, "Fuck for Forest are concerned youngsters, fighting to preserve the environment. We believe it is possible to use people's need for sexuality as a way to raise money for nature".

At Norway's Quart festival in 2004, as a band -- appropriately called Cumshots -- played, the couple had an intercourse right in front of the audience. A banner was raised on stage informing the audience that the couple was having sex to save the rainforest. After completing the intercourse, the couple received applause from the audience and disappeared. The festival organisers and local police were not amused, though; eventually taking the couple to the Kristiansand court. Neither was the Rainforest Foundation Norway. WWF, the World Wildlife Fund, has so far refused to take money from Fuck for Forest; argumenting their decision that they "cannot connect our brandname and logo to certain sectors of industry". Other environmental organisations haven't warmed up yet to Fuck for Forest's offers, neither has the actual porn industry.

More:

Grist Magazine

Nettavisen

Sex Herald (adults only)

Maths Anxiety

When I was at school, the mathematics classes were always a nightmare to me. I was gifted in foreign languages and writing essays for my Finnish classes, so I think I was not totally dumb, but maths were like an alien, abstract language to me which I could not comprehend at all. It caused me heavy anxiety and frustration, and many years on, I still have nightmares about my maths classes where the recurring theme is that I'm facing some totally incomprehensible test that I have no hope of passing. So, at some point in my teens I gave up altogether trying to understand maths, and always copied my maths homework just before lessons from my classmates.

Gladly I didn't have to take maths with my lukio (Finnish equivalent to high school) end exams, since I could compensate it instead with Finnish, English, Swedish and German (which I have mostly forgotten ever since, tut mir leid), and also history, so not having to worry about mathematics, I managed those end exams with flying colours, with a combined grade of laudatur as result (but look what good it did to me, since I eventually became just a university drop-out, though that's a different story...)

Anyway, I'm still mostly at loss with everything that concerns numbers. I can do simple adding and sums, but never ever ask me anything about algebra, derivation, equations or things like that unless you want to see me turn into a complete nervous wreck.

I found some consolation now when I read that British psychologists have found out that the inability to understand mathematics may be caused by something else than actually lacking mathematical skills. They have recently diagnosed a condition called "Maths Anxiety", which may prevent otherwise intelligent people to manage even the simplest mathematical equations.

"It appears that maths anxiety affects performance on arithmetical problems because anxious intrusive thoughts compete for limited memory resources and this may disrupt the calculation processes involved in arithmetic problem solving", says Dr. Sheila Ford of the Staffordshire University.

Dr. Ford's group is now studying different relaxation techniques with which these problems could be prevented. They are also researching in which specific age this maths anxiety could possibly originate. Dr. Ford says that these symptoms have been found out with children as young as ten years old, adding that these might be caused by the first experiences with maths teachers. -- Well, that would exactly fit in with my personal experiences with educational system...


More:

Guardian

Memory Skills

The British Psychological Society

Saga Health News

Syntesia Night at Vastavirta

Vastavirta-klubi is a small club in Pispala district of Tampere.

Pispala, a hill between lake Näsijärvi and lake Pyhäjärvi, was in the old times known as the living area of working class people, and it has spawned many famous Finnish poets and writers such as Lauri Viita and Hannu Salama, creating a heavy bohemian air for the area. Lately, this reputation has crumbled quite a bit, since Pispala has more and more become a dwelling place for the nouveau riche, and the prices of real estate have risen rapidly.

Nevertheless, Vastavirta, a club run for some time by a coop of the same name, has done its best to retain some of the traditional Pispala boho spirit. Mostly Vastavirta-klubi, situated almost next to Pispala's landmark, Haulitorni, has hosted gigs for local and visiting punk bands, but lately local electronic underground has also found a home there, with such clubs as Swäg and now Syntesia, which calls "industrial-powerelectronics-techno-ambient-noise" its agenda.

I was asked some time ago by one of Syntesia's co-organisers Sarianna Tamminen a.k.a. VJ Kurssa Sarcastik a.k.a. Sarkku (a gifted graphic artist, by the way, who has designed visuals for the industrial band Temple of Tiermes) if I was interested to DJ at their club. I told Sarkku that of course I was interested, and last night I had an hour's DJ set at Vastavirta.

So, the first Syntesia club took place on Sunday 24 April 2005. We arrived there with the organisers Jari and Sepi in their Hiace some time after 7 pm. The soundchecks were already on. As I came in, a cover version of The Stooges' 'Search and Destroy' was playing, and I gazed around a bit. Some counterculture sort of people seemed to be hanging around, young and old punks and art school student type of people, enjoying their teas, beers and the orangeish spring evening sun shedding in its warm glow from the club's large windows. There was a long saloon-type of bar counter, comfortable-looking lodges for punters, with a bookshelf consisting of underground culture books and fanzines and a computer in a corner where I checked out the latest Viagra and penis enlargement spam in my mailbox. The stage seemed not to be too big, but large enough for these underground sort of events.

I played after DJ Åke Kara whose repertoire consisted mostly of 90s minimal Detroit sort of techno. I remembered this guy from last July's Lavatanssit party in Nokia's forests. Well, now it was fun to spin some different sort of material I can't normally play at my usual electro events, such as noise and experimental. I normally fuss a really lot about my beatmatching skills (or lack thereof), but this time it was great just to create these sound collages with two vinyl players, two CD players and a mixer, and mix it all together as one wonderful chaotic mess, playing all these in sync at the same time. I had this short loop of a woman's orgastic breathing which I played underneath all that stuff (maybe I overplayed the loop a bit, but it was springtime after all), a set consisting of Virtalähde, Kid606, Speed Freak, Merzbow, Speedranch^Jansky Noise, Atari Teenage Riot, DJ Bug's raggacore, Erkki Salmenhaara's musique concrète, The Sperm, Throbbing Gristle; and such pop turds as Kata Kärkkäinen's unforgettable 1989 hit "Your Love Ain't Good Enough For Me" (with its memorable "äy-äy" chorus) and of course the queen of pop we all love to hate, Madonna (fuck your way to the top even if you can't sing a bit, become an ubiquitous media celebrity and even a feminist icon -- empress's new clothes for the clueless intellectuals desperately trying to be hip -- and see how your "Blonde Ambition" pays off)! And naturally Fredi's classic early-70s FinnHit, 'Kun rakkaus voittaa' ("When Love Wins"), accompanied by Hitler's speech! The set was recorded on MiniDisc and duly archived (the tracklist is here -- ask me if you want a copy of the set).

Of the night's live acts, Agnosia played right after my set; in fact, when they started I found my way out blocked from behind my DJ tables and their gear, so I huddled beneath there for all their gig, which mercifully lasted only for twenty minutes. In fact, it was fun, though, musically they continued about along the same lines with my own DJ set, mixing noise to cheesy old pop hits they played from old vinyls. I wouldn't let these guys near my own record collection, though; after they had done with playing their old records of Finnish yesteryear pop band Mamba and such, they quickly disposed of those vinyl records by hurling them to the floor or breaking them to pieces!

The night was continued by the Turku couple of Ovro and Niko Skorpio, both playing esoteric ambientish material in the spirit of Coil on their laptops. Ovro was a stylish tiny bespectacled girl wearing a black miniskirt, platformish high heel shoes and face hidden under a black baseball cap. Her soundscapes drifted in the air and panned around stereophonically. Then it was Niko Skorpio's turn; a lanky bald-headed guy with glasses, his beard tied in a little ponytail, and wearing a silly-looking pointed cap, as if being some hippie magician, he conjured to the air more magick soundscapes.

As every film puff knows, Gelsomina is the tragic female character played by Giulietta Masina in Federico Fellini's masterpiece La Strada, lending her name also to this Turku noise act who played next. Appropriately, they started out with Nino Rota's immortal La Strada theme music, which turned then into something far more sinister. All in all, it was a good night.

Pics from Syntesia:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

More MP3s: 'Superstar' by New York City Survivors

Did you listen to 'Kompleksi' by Kompleksi vs Club Telex Noise Ensemble yet? If so, here's for you another MP3 to check out: 'Superstar' demo by New York City Survivors (published here by the permission of NYCS).

New York City Survivors (actually named before 9/11) is an electro duo of Kimmo Rapatti (producer) and Irwin Berg (vocals), known for its abrasive sound verging on the edge of EBM/industrial techno: their 'World of Madness' must be one of my all-time favourites ("We're living in the world of madness / and you're just a fucking freak / just like me)". Deliciously twisted and deranged, NYCS have also appeared on the Sound of Suomi compilation of Finnish electro artists on Holland's Bunker Records and The Disco-Tech of... Alexander Robotnick compilation.

Kimmo "Kim" Rapatti is already a legendary figure in Finnish techno/electro music scene, best known for his records as Mono Junk and his own record label, Dum. Irwin Berg, who DJs occasionally, is also a legendary and notorious freak in the electronic dance music scene of his hometown Turku, Finland; there are various stories in circulation about Irwin's adventures...

A list of all soundfiles you can hear through pHinnWeb at the moment.

Miss Pullukka

Miss Pullukka 1973, Rauha Sanna Koli

Finnish sensation magazine Hymy (which you can find represented at pHinnWeb's FinnSleaze page) organised its first Miss Pullukka (translating as "Miss Plump" or "Miss Tubby") contest in 1972. Hymy articulated its goal to criticize beauty norms very clearly in its opening declaration of Miss Pullukka contest: "Us here in Hymy magazine think that a girl does not have to be stick-thin, curveless model type to be beautiful, feminine and attractive." "When we discuss women's equal rights, we should also enforce equality between women by crushing today's misleading ideas of beauty." "We are organizing a very own contest for the big, plump, genuinely womanly women, where the common beauty queen measurements are unacceptable." "The contest is open for all round Finnish women, Miss or Mrs." "The contest costume is free, but a soft, girlish posture is an advantage." (Hymy 12/1972).

Finland's Miss Pullukka, Rauha Sanna Koli, was not chosen by reader's vote, although that was the original purpose, but "the jury was so won over by her voluptuousness and uninhibited behavior that the case was clear without voting" (Hymy 2/1973). Rauha's age and weight were not told, but she was clearly more excessively fat than any of the present-day Miss XLs and probably over 50 years old, a divorcee with three children.

The finalists' ages varied from thirty-something to sixty-something, and their sizes varied greatly as well. Some of them were "on the edge of being too slim" according to the magazine -– Rauha, the winner, was possibly from the fattest end of the contestants. The published pictures of the finalists were the same ones they had sent for the contest, but Rauha was photographed especially by the magazine in the nude. The nude photos of Rauha were by no means pornographic, but they were meant to be shocking without doubt: "There is hardly anyone in our readers who could ignore these photos without any reaction, without any expression, without any emotion".

In the biggest of the three photos of Rauha, she is looking in a fake innocent manner over her shoulder, standing up sideways, with her whole body in the picture, hands crossed over the breasts, and her hip pushed out. In an another picture she is kneeling down, and her breasts hang over her other knee. In the third picture she faces the camera and holds her breasts up, laughing. Hymy tells that Miss Pullukka contest was a success with hundreds of participants and many thank-you letters from readers, but for some reason the contest was not organized again.

Listen to Kompleksi vs Club Telex Noise Ensemble

One track of ours called

Kompleksi vs Club Noise Ensemble - 'Kompleksi' (originally titled 'CTNE')

is now downloadable both as
mp3 and ogg vorbis.

It's music of my mind, as brought to this world with the kind assistance of Mike Not; an exp.eclectro sonic psychodrama both on a common and individual level, concerning some pivotal issues of geopolitical and economic nature. Warning: not for the weak nerves.

Some feedback:

From pHinnWeb's mailing list -

Rene Kita: "Yow, fun, a new version. This one sounds like psychedelic electro, if there is such a critter. Me likes it a lot."

Sakke Karipuro: "i hear plenty of skinny puppy-ish things here. this is some hot stuff. great sampling too."

And Platinum -

Platinum

A list of all soundfiles you can hear through pHinnWeb at the moment.

Magazine: Shot By Both Sides

When punk rock happens, it is like a Stalinist putsch or Chinese Culture Revolution in music. Malcolm McLaren decides to start his own version of The Monkees for the bleak, post-oil crisis and pre-Thatcher 70s, and calls them Sex Pistols. Whereas 60s' slogans were "Peace" and "Love", now they are "Anarchy" and "Destroy". Out go prog-rock and concept albums, long hairs and beards; in other words: all things that are by now BORING -- in come three chords rock (taking its cues from The Stooges and New York Dolls), pogoing, nihilism and sniffing glue.

In 1977, as British punk rock's first vital energy is on the point of burning itself out, Howard Devoto, the founder, lyricist and front man of Buzzcocks, decides to make a change.

In a statement issued that February -- to announce that he is leaving Buzzcocks -- Devoto writes: "I don't like most of this new wave music. I don't like music. I don't like movements. Despite all that -- things still have to be said. But I am not confident of Buzzcocks' intention to get out of the dry land of new waveness to a place from which these things could be said. What was once unhealthily fresh is now a clean old hat."

Devoto thinks punk has become derivative, one-dimensional, unimaginative and predictable; in other words: BORING.

Devoto's new band calls itself Magazine, and consists of himself, Barry Adamson (bass), Dave Formula (keyboards), John McGeoch (guitar) and John Doyle (drums).

We have moved to the post-punk period; on their way are also the post-Pink Flag Wire, Public Image Limited, Joy Division, Gang of Four, Pop Group, Scritti Politti, and, later on, erm, Simple Minds and U2, and the ultra-white horrors of goth-rock. (And also synthpop, paving way for the 80s' and 90s' techno and house music.) Punk's simplistic sloganeering and throwaway pub rock-cum-The Stooges chainsaw guitar sounds give way to a more "arty" approach, more complex and nuanced melodies, even having space for synthesizers, previously known from the bloated concept albums of Pink Floyd and Yes -- vade retro! Has prog-rock made its feared return in the disguise of post-punk?

Michael Bracewell writes about Magazine for the liner notes of band's 2000 compilation Where The Power Is:

The group had a natural genius for the drama (and melodrama) of music, for that edgy filmic quality which could pick its way to the beginnings of self-parody before suddenly jolting back to the vitality of the original theme. Their intuitive leanings toward a type of music which expressed nervousness and apprehension -- a soundtrack, if you want, for film of a poorly-lit turn in the dark corridor -- were matched by their ability to pick up on the glamour and urgency of, for instance, spy movie themes from the 1960s and 1970s. Mixed together into their own unique sound, these influences became the ideal vehicle for Devoto's equally eclectic -- yet perfectly poised -- combinations of lyric, vocal and performing style.

Magazine's best-known track is their 1978 single 'Shot By Both Sides'; with a haunting melody added to punkish buzz-saw guitars, and the elliptical, existential lyrics which depict the lonely dissident outsider's ultimate position everywhere: "Shot by both sides / on the run to the outside of everything / shot by both sides / they must have come to a secret understanding". We are stuck on no man's land between warring factions, dodging bullets from both prog conservatives and punk partisans.

After Magazine disbanded, Barry Adamson got into his film music-influenced solo albums, even collaborating with Pan sonic; John McGeoch (who sadly passed in 2004) went on with Siouxsie and the Banshees and the much-maligned but at times brilliant ('Fade To Grey'!) Visage, where also keyboard player Dave Formula (familiar from Ultravox) joined. Howard Devoto collaborated with Luxuria, This Mortal Coil and Apollo 440!

New Weird of Finland @ Pitchfork -- Arttu Mouths Off

There's an interview/scene primer at Pitchfork Media about this so called New Weird Of Finland scene, meaning bands and labels concentrated on experimental-psychedelic-folk-freejazz-improvisation type of music. If you have followed The Wire magazine or some more underground type of music publications lately, you must have noticed that this is the hottest thing in music coming out of this country now, and not any more the minimal electronic music of Pan sonic or Mika Vainio (well, that's just their opinion).

As noted in the Pitchfork story, though, you can snicker any time when you can hear some of these non-Finnish journalists using the notorious term "the mystical forests of Finland", or especially "the mystical forests of Tampere", since this town consists more of dusty red-brick factories and smokestacks than of any hippie-ish pastoral idylls (as evidenced here and here). Tampere's suburbs and surroundings are a different thing, though... (Not to talk about my own personal vision of the Tampere town...)

Anyway, here's a funny excerpt from the interview:

"Many [early Finnish musicians] were technologically oriented; it was all about the new wonderful computers," says Arttu Partinen of Avarus, noisy jazz monsters Hetero Skeleton, and the Lal Lal Lal label. "Some such as Erkki Kurenniemi have futuristic utopias about computers taking over, and [that] being a good thing. After hearing one of Kurenniemi'a lectures, I decided I didn't want to have anything to do with his music."

Tsk tsk, Arttu... well, but before you jump into any conclusions, I know Arttu (the pic above) and like the guy; and even though we've had our different opinions on electronic music in the past, I've done some collaboration with him, DJed at his great Mental Alaska club, and his Lal Lal Lal will also soon release '(I Ain't No) Lovechild', the first 7" of our Kompleksi project. (Plus there will be another big project where both and Arttu will participate in, but you will only hear about it later.) In fact, if there is any local underground music scene, for me, Mr. Arttu Partinen is one person to whom you may say it personifies in.

---

Well, more Arttu's (and other Finns' adventures at Glasgow's Subcurrent festival in April 2005, as written down by David Keenan in his Wire diary:

"Backstage Partinen is drunk as hell and in everybody's face. He corners Nolan with the news that Virgin Eye Blood Brother suck. Nolan stays cool and shrugs it off, despite Partinen comparing them to '80s indie shoegazing'. It's only when he starts muttering about 'dudes' to himself and how he's gonna blow Wolf Eyes off-stage that Mike Bernstein of Double Leopards shoots me a look that says, this guy may end up on the pavement before the night's out. It's getting sweaty back here."

"Everyone has been waiting for Avarus -- Partinen won't let anyone forget them -- and they don't disappoint. Although there are extended sections of surreal gonzo humour (with Partinen spending long, uncomfortable minutes mock-masturbating an inflated balloon) when they do kick in they have all of the monumental, lumbering power of Silence-era groups like International Harvester. Kemialliset Ystävät -- like Es before them -- sound pretty different from what they do on record, with a ragged, loose quality to their sound that seems inspired as much by the interstellar improvisations of Syd-era Pink Floyd as much as UK free-form groups like The A-Band and Vibracathedral Orchestra."

"Suddenly The Fins are on the floor -- as well as some un-named guy who has cut his hair like Thurston Moore and who keeps running over to the deck and shaking his fist in the air -- and it's then that Niko-Matti Ahti drops in the moves that make his name at the fest, shaking his ass with the kind of abandon rarely seen in public. They send in the security to ask him to dance 'more sedately'. They know he's dangerous."

An Individual In Confrontation With The World, Pt. 10

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Sebastian was seeing red again when he read from a newspaper another neoliberalist right-wing politician boasting: "If someone struggles physically or mentally, his income also must be superior to the one who doesn't bother to struggle", adding that "everyone is responsible for themselves". Such claptrap! If this was so, then why would some people struggle for all their lives, and still stay piss-poor?

Why should I follow the rules if those high and mighty politicians won't, Sebastian thought when watching a news report about the latest bribe scandal featuring politicians and some supreme court judges holding high positions. Viva civil disobedience! Up against the wall, motherfucker!

Enough of this already. He had to get out. It was Saturday night, so he decided to head for a joint called The Pop Club. Actually he was too old for that place with its teenyboppers and hiphop kids, but he had become accustomed to hanging out there for over a decade now, and the idea of having to spectate the antics of sad, drunken people of his age or older at some other bar, where the more "mature" people normally gathered, only filled him with disgust. Having kids around him made him feel young himself, even though the calendar may have said something else.

The Pop Club was not far from where he lived, only two blocks away, so you didn't have to risk your physical health having to stroll all through the drunken Saturday night jungle by foot or to waste your money in taxis.

When Sebastian arrived, a heatwave struck him in the face. The air was hot and humid as if in a greenhouse. Later on he found out that the blower that pumped cool air to the dancefloor had been broken, and the bartenders opened windows to let in some cold spring night air, to the dismay of those people who were sitting next to the windows.

Nevertheless, kids were dancing and fooling around as usually, as clueless and stupid as ever, but still somehow cute, as very young and ignorant people can be. Sebastian struggled his way to the bar through the crowded dancefloor where party people were wriggling to Beyoncé's 'Crazy In Love' or to some other current hit the DJs were always playing. As usually he bought a lager in plastic pint, which the bartender handed to him even without Sebastian having to place his order: not a case of telepathy, they knew he never drank anything else. Then Sebastian tried to find an observation place in a club where people were jammed in as if in a tin of sardines.

As time went by, Sebastian saw less and less familiar faces at The Pop Club. He knew he was an old relic there; his own contemporaries or even the people he had hung around with only a couple of years ago had mostly stopped clubbing when they had gotten older, deeper into their relationships and careers, and had started their own families and so on. Or then the old school people he had known had moved away to the capital city after better-paid jobs in IT business, advertising, TV or music business. Many nights he was content only to sip his beer alone, never talking with anyone and gazing the ongoing silliness of kids around him.

The DJ, an old veteran who had played at The Pop Club at least for twenty years, spinned now Deee-Lite's 'Groove Is In The Heart', a big club hit in 1990. Sebastian had grown sick and tired of that tune after having heard it at The Pop Club about a million times all through these years. It still seemed to be a floor-filler, though. This DJ in question had previously been specialized in old soul and funk, but in the latest years had been starting to play more and more MTV-type of R&B, which bored Sebastian: all those girl groups with their dance routines and pseudo-raps, simple tunes that sounded like children's songs, and with their digitally enhanced breasts and booties. Well, if that's what the kids today wanted to hear, OK, but as far as he was concerned, they could just fuck their "bling-bling" culture. Keep it real, man...

Though usually drinking alone, Sebastian always did his best to avoid giving the sad lonely-wall-rose impression. He kept walking around the club all time, "checking the scene", even danced a bit occasionally, and always finding a new observation post, instead of keeping sitting in a distant corner table, lest some soul with good intentions came to ask him: "Hey, why are you sitting here alone, looking so sad?" and blaah blaah. Usually they were either some plain-looking girls with nurturing tendencies, not-so-attractive to him, or worse, drunken guys whose babble more often than not bored Sebastian to death.

Often Sebastian kept thinking about his loner position, why he had to be such a lone wolf. He had been like that since he had been a child; he had always found other kids' games and their constant running around only childish and stupid; there had always been other things he had found more interesting, such as his fantasies, the adventures in books or films, his own little private joys. He had felt for all his life that he did not belong.

Did he feel sad because of his solitude? Sometimes he had, yes, but he had learned to intellectualise it, to see it all just philosophically. He was just an observer in this world, it was his his task to learn to understand, to be an eyewitness to the world's madness, not an active participator. He knew he was running away from his own feelings that way, but even that was better than living in a constant pain which came along with understanding. Keep your distance, don't get involved. Observe, analyse. Think. Keep an ironic detachment. Just don't feel.

11

The Art of Retouching

Ever wondered how those photo models of magazines seem to always have such perfect and faultless bodies? Well, this is how they fool us. It's quite amusing to see how these retouches reflect the current beauty ideals of what a woman (or in one example, a man) is supposed to look like: larger breasts, perfectly round buttocks as with today's butt queen Jennifer Lopez, no wrinkles or bags under eyes or moles or other skin irregularities, no cellulite or double chins, no fat, no too "disturbing" tattoos. More "healthy" skin colour added. What amazes me most is that they have also retouched pictures of women who look perfectly beautiful to me even without this digital plastic surgeon's knife used. Goodbye reality, welcome simulation.

Pass cursor over image to see image before retouching:

http://glennferon.com/portfolio1/index.html

Telex 150405 Playlist

Here's the list of records I spinned at last night's Telex:

Gary Numan: Down In The Park
Rhythim Is Rhythim: Strings
Analord: Steppingfilter 101
Cybotron: Alleys of Your Mind
I-f: Shadow of a Clown
The Emperor Machine: Pro Mars
Human: Evil Knevil
Drexciya: You Don't Know
Kraftwerk: Expo 2000 (Underground Resistance mix)
Underground Resistance: Codebreaker
Laite: Pain
Dynamix II: The Plastic Men
DJ Magic Mike: Check Out Dat Butt!
DJ Assault: Strictly For The Tricks
DJ Slugo: Back Da Fuck Up
DJ Nasty: Directions
Shamen: Ebeneezer Goode (Meat Beat Manifesto mix)
Jeff Mills: Black Is The Number
Sem: Area 5

Of the night's live acts, I liked the best my old favourite, VCS 2600 (of mighty Rikos Records and also appearing on Sweden's Stilleben, Luke Eargoggle's label), one Janne Heikkarainen who creates great analogue electro: harsh and bleak enough to my own tastes. J-P Parikka and Kalle M played a sort of German-style tech-house with some dubby flavour, à la Sami Koivikko; with Sergio Leone's The Good, The Bad and The Ugly running as their backdrop on video screen.

Sakke took some pics of the event, which you can see here --
pHinn mercifully not appearing there! ;)

An Individual In Confrontation With The World, Pt. 9

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Night after night Sebastian would watch rich capitalist bastards gloating on TV, after sacking again thousands of people from their companies, only to keep their precious balances right. This always filled Sebastian with silent, powerless rage. This made him glad too that he was unemployed, and out of the rat race, but for how long? Perhaps he too was to be turned soon into another minimum wage slave by the employment officials, and he had a great future ahead of him cleaning up construction sites to survive. Sometimes he thought he would rather blow his brains out with a shotgun than submit to this.

One day chickens would come home to roost, though: it was inevitable one day oppressed masses would start revolting; when the revolution would come along, these members of economical elite would be slaughtered like pigs they were. Or perhaps the growing poverty and inequality would just pave way for populist politicians and totalitarian fascist-type of dictators. Read history: it all had happened before -- early 20th century Russia and Germany... in the third world countries religious fanaticism turning into terrorist violence. Or maybe there would be a nuclear war sparing no one, a merciful coup de grace to let the world out of its misery.

Sebastian firmly thought the whole Western civilisation (so called) was on the brink of collapse. Economy was overboiling, based on the deception of the notion of ever-growing profits. Every thinking person would see through that bullshit of the Orwellian doublespeak favoured by economists and consultants. These days any real alternatives were narrowed down to few: either play along their game, or perish. Those people who were still not outsourced out of their jobs were preached by the high priests of economy, in the names of cost-efficiency and productivity, that they should "work twice as much with a wage twice as small, so they elite could enjoy their own double income, preferably without the disturbing intervention by taxes". Put up or shut up.

Nature was dying as the imminent ecocatastrophe was being sped up by great industry. The ozone layer was evaporating, ice caps melting. The sun would scorch the Earth all the time more ferociously, while all over the world floods and raging storms were punishing people as never earlier before. Only a fool would dig up the earth from beneath his feet, and think he could gather together a bigger pile in front of him that way, but it was obvious we were all aboard a ship of fools whose captain was a power-hungry madman.

Was there anything to be done? At the moment, apathy prevailed. People were so brainwashed and alienated by TV and mass entertainment which kept them content enough. All aesthetics had become pornography. No one would bother to subvert; except only for a small minority of discontent activists who were aware and educated, but perhaps they were only in the minority: on a losing run against the oppressive machinery of establishment and powers-that-be. Party politics had become a joke after politicians had been reduced to marionettes and serfs for economic interests of large companies.

Selfishness ruled everywhere: everyone was only interested to grab more and more money. Egocentric individualism and elbow tactics were favoured by the ME ME ME generation; such noble yesteryear ideas as solidarity or empathy had been ditched, and old communities had broke up.

Life everywhere was a blood-thirsty conflict, a struggle for survival. Violence, both mental and physical made the poor and marginalized to turn against each other. Black-on-black crimes, white-on-white crimes, white-on-black crimes, black-on-white-crimes, everyone-on-everyone crimes. All street kids blinded by their MTV-fed dreams of "bling bling" wanted to become gangstas like Tony Montana in Scarface. When walking on the street, you could get battered to death for no purpose at all except for providing cheap thrills for a bunch of disturbed hoods.

LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES

Sebastian luxuriated in his near-orgastic apocalyptic thoughts: we were all doomed, the rich and poor alike; living on numbered days. Thinking of it was like an orgasm in reverse, and Sebastian was a disaster onanist.

Telex Friday 15 April 2005

Official Telex Site

pHinnWeb's Telex Archives

An Individual In Confrontation With The World, Pt. 8

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Otto had again met in the elevator that moody, weird kid with piercing eyes, which always made him a bit uneasy, but he forgot the strange young man as soon as he entered the street. Ahead of him was another day of stamping papers, arranging files and staring at computer screen till his myopic eyes hurt. In the evening maybe watching TV, or having a couple of pints in a corner pub before going to sleep. A colourless little life of a colourless little man, notable only for its uneventfulness and drabness; like tens of thousands of similar fates in his hometown of old factories and their harbouring smokestacks. What did rise him above all that was his ability to fantasize.

Women in Otto's office didn't do too much to catch his fancy, being mostly middle-aged wives in their cosy marriages or divorced, or even dry spinster type with their sagging breasts. Otto didn't dedicate many thoughts to them, bar some lukewarm chatter during coffee breaks which he barely ever participated. His mind was occupied with other matters altogether.

It was springtime, and the streets were again filled with miniskirts and high heels. This was the season of the year Otto always loved, though not exactly for blossoming flowers and trees.

It felt like all around Otto he could see voluptuous bodies and luscious lips, heaving bosoms and shaking hips; feisty little vixens and ethereal mirages strolling down the streets waving their designer handbags. Otto thought woman's body was nature's masterwork in design. If asked, if Otto was a breast man, a butt man or a legs man, he would definitely choose buttocks. Those wonderful curvatures and contours of women's juicy bottoms kept Otto endlessly in their thrall. Often on the street, a stealthy erection would rear its ugly head as Otto observed the lower ends of female pedestrians.

Young girls favoured these days stretch jeans which Otto thought just made favourable impressions of their succulent bottoms, shaped like peaches or ripe pears you just wanted to hit your teeth on. Otto didn't mind the girls who were a bit plump in their rear ends; on the contrary, a slight tubbiness in the bottom area would form a delicious sight for his sore eyes. Otto had spent many afternoons admiring and comparing these wonders of Mother Nature. Not only bottoms; also shapeful and fleshy thighs were another obsession of Otto; those divine pillars between which were located those lovely tight slits, the very object of any heterosexual man's secret desire.

Despite his vivid, lustful imagination Otto did not consider himself a type who would harass or intimidate women. Vice versa, he saw himself a sort of polite gentleman, albeit a connoisseur of sort. Nature was meant to be admired, after all, in all its beauty: as they said, nothing in this world was as futile as the pope's balls and nun's nipples.

9

Paul Auster: The Music of Chance

I just read Paul Auster's excellent Music of Chance (1990). The blurb of this book goes as follows: "Nashe has decided to pursue a 'life of freedom', when he meets Pozzi, an itinerant gambler. Together they go in for an extraordinary game of poker with Flower and Stone, two eccentric recluses living on a vast estate in Pennsylvania. It is a gamble that Nashe and Pozzi will regret for the rest of their lives. The Music of Chance is strange haunting parable by a writer of extraordinary imagination and power".

(Warning: contains some spoilers.)

Jim Nashe is a drifter who quits his job as fireman after receiving a surprise inheritance from his estranged father, sells his property and starts driving around USA aimlessly in his Saab. On the road he chances upon Jack Pozzi, a young master gambler in his early twenties, who has been battered badly by a bunch of businessmen after their poker game was robbed by a gang of masked robbers; the businessmen thinking it was Pozzi who had given a tip of the game to the robbers.

Nashe saves Pozzi, who tells Nashe he's planning a poker game with two millionaires, Flower and Stone, Pozzi mockingly calling them "Laurel and Hardy". Pozzi thinks winning these two dumb millionaires in a game of poker will be a piece of cake, and Nashe, after having become convinced of Pozzi's poker skills, agrees to finance the game with his inheritance money, if he and Pozzi split the pot together.

It turns out Flower and Stone have won themselves 27 million dollars in lottery and bought themselves a large mansion with their award money, where they can dedicate themselves to their peculiar hobbies: the tubby Flower collecting random things that had belonged to famous historical characters, the skinny Stone building a laborious model town, far more sinister than it looks at a first glance.

The game starts at Flower and Stone's mansion, but it turns out Pozzi has somehow underestimated his opponents' skills... what ensues is that Nashe and Pozzi end up being virtually prisoners of Flower and Stone, having to build up a mysterious wall on the millionaires' land to compensate for their gambling debts.

This is a multi-layered book which plot can be compared to the "Theatre of Absurd" and its playwrights like Samuel Beckett, especially his classic Waiting For Godot: in fact, Jack Pozzi's name resembles a character called Pozzo there; Laurel and Hardy-like Stone and Flower have also been compared to Beckett's directionless tramps Vladimir and Estragon in the same play. Jim Nashe and Jack Pozzi are also lonely existential characters who have been condemned to endless drifting without a goal. Chance, as the very name of the book tells, is a very crucial factor here: Nashe, Pozzi, Flower and Stone are all maintained either by inheritance, lottery win or gambling.

What is also typical here for Paul Auster's books, is the elliptical narrative style ("ellipsis, also ellipse: the omission from a sentence of words needed to complete construction or sense"): the reader is never fully explained everything in the plot, these gaps adding to an overall sense of mystery. For example, we can only guess the full meaning of the sinister model town built by Stone; towards the end of book the millionaires Stone and Flower become absent characters (such as Beckett's Godot?) who nevertheless keep pulling on the strings as invisible. Why do Stone and Flower want to build on their property a wall, made up of the bricks of a castle imported from Ireland? And what is Pozzi's final fate, after all?

All in all, as Auster's New York Trilogy (which verged on the edge of metafiction), a wonderful book; quite simple on surface but consisting of very complex themes that keep the reader wondering for a long time after having finished the book.