MIKA VAINIO - Aíneen Musta Puhelin

The English title is Black Telephone Of Matter, which is probably less fascinating – and perhaps even more incomprehensible - than its Finnish translation. But - language matters aside - this album by Vainio, the fourth at his name on Touch, gives us several reasons for feeling musically rewarded, and many others to remain wholly mystified and at a loss for words in the unproductive attempt to describe sounds that are impenetrable, often incredibly cold, yet attuned with the logic of solitary contemplation (bordering on inaccessible sufferance) that is becoming rather typical of the era in which the world seems to shut doors to whoever stands outside the borders of mass stupidity.

In spite of the countless silences that the record presents the most frequent response is a sense of oppressing adversity, the kind of thoughts that usually people try to swat away through an unrealistic vision of eventual future betterments that, in truth, are not likely to appear anytime soon. We’re left alone with sudden appearances of computerized excretions whose equalization is at times irritant, barely audible exudations introducing waste materials replete with electrostatic remnants and misshapen atmospheres from unknown places – could be a waterfall or an anechoic chamber, the result remains a total despoliation of the original tissue of a sound source.

When Vainio decides that low frequencies and entrancement must become one and the same, he delivers authoritatively: tracks such as “Hautaa Hevosen Pää” (dedicated to John Duncan) and the final “Hengityttajä”, both utilizing elements of physical reality amidst impressive landscapes of forlorn burdensomeness, place this disc in the “spin again before long” list.

Next time we’ll think about smiling.

Touch

GÜNTER MÜLLER – Cym Bowl

Finding brain-teasing complications in Günter Müller’s sonic conceptions is a hard task, maybe impossible. Yet, having started as a “regular” percussionist, he’s made the most of an ever-noticeable sensitiveness in the treatment of both the percussive arsenal and the emissions coming from other sources (he was probably the first to utilize an iPod as a generator), thus giving birth to an innovative brand of intensely affecting electronic music, often spiced with EAI components. The Swiss composer is really one of a kind, and the fact that we almost instantly recognize those characters as soon as his records are spun is testimony to the status reached.

As the title implies, this album was entirely realized with cymbals and a singing bowl, the initial three tracks and the last respectively informed by those instruments. The original sounds are rendered nearly unrecognizable after being subjected to a skilful studio therapy, which makes sure that all which is caught by the listener consists of a series of hypnotizing impulses, an imposing throbbing whose diffusion is enhanced by admirably unusual overtones. The unclear definition of the structure and the hazy features of these meticulous juxtapositions define any attempt to trace a profile of the compositional design as meaningless: we just receive the mass of sound as perceived, fully satisfied with its intoxicating permanence and incontestable beauty. A natural phenomenon to behold more than a simple musical piece.

“Third Cym” is perhaps the most absorbing track on offer in terms of emotional content, containing the ideal doses of everything: pulse, luminescence, reiteration, capacity of progressive entrancement. But it’s the final “Bowl” that results as an extraordinarily congenial deviation from the “norm”, a vacillating harmony possessing a sort of vocal quality transforming it in a cryptic choral strain amidst bodiless echoes of lastingness, ending in absolute mystery following a shift towards the realms of incomprehensible droning, the whole underlined by various kinds of subterranean heterogeneity. A step in a different direction for Müller which we’d love to see deepened in the future, a disquietingly poignant episode pushing an already gratifying release into the ranks of excellence.

That the pronunciation of the record’s name equals “symbol” is only a thought crossing my mind; it remains to be seen what the main designer is referring to, if that’s not a mere coincidence.

Mikroton

STOP PRESS. Just in from Günter Müller: (...) cym_bowl = symbol was clear for me as soon as I knew that I would use the bowl for a cd. There you go!