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Erkki Kurenniemi "Recordings 1963-1973"
Love Records
This CD is a treasure trove, mother lode, holy grail and the missinglink in the fossil record of electronic music. Kurenniemi'sachievements in the design of revolutionary instruments stand apartboth in the technical aspects and in how they introduced radically newways of making music. The recordings on this CD show just how far aheadof his time he was. It includes his own musical creations, somepromotional material for the instruments he tried to sell, someexperiments and a couple of collaborations. The breadth of the materialis so big, from sequenced Bach through tape collage to improvised tapeand feedback noise performance, that I can only mention a few. Theopening two tracks are crucial for Pan Sonic fans. They feature hisElectronic Quartet (Sähkökvartetti), a device with four instruments inone, and a huge, outrageously 90s sound. (If you doubt that Kurenniemiwas responsible for the Pan Sonic sound, try a little web research.)Kurenniemi's psychedelic tape collage, "Hana," is beautifully ugly anddream-like while the more academic sounding "Preludi" is a piercingmechanical composition in mutating repeating phrases and freeglissandi. "Virsi," another collage piece, shows off the composer'srather Finnish taste for the absurd as well as for the abstract,combining electronic sounds, various samples of voices, movies andmusic with tape effects, a long soaring multi-tone glissando, awonderful plaintive deep feedback solo. Among all the dazzlinginvention and sophistication throughout the CD it's the earliestrecording that I love the most. Inspired by the massive turbines of apower plant, "On-Off" is a live recording of Kurenniemi's manipulatingall the equipment at Helsinki University's Electronic Music Studio atonce. It's all noise with a whirring, throbbing texture, wild feedback,ripping slashes of sound and massive dynamics all with an evocativetight acoustic ambience. This absolutely brilliant recording could wellbe the prototype of modern improvised noise art performance.
This CD is a treasure trove, mother lode, holy grail and the missinglink in the fossil record of electronic music. Kurenniemi'sachievements in the design of revolutionary instruments stand apartboth in the technical aspects and in how they introduced radically newways of making music. The recordings on this CD show just how far aheadof his time he was. It includes his own musical creations, somepromotional material for the instruments he tried to sell, someexperiments and a couple of collaborations. The breadth of the materialis so big, from sequenced Bach through tape collage to improvised tapeand feedback noise performance, that I can only mention a few. Theopening two tracks are crucial for Pan Sonic fans. They feature hisElectronic Quartet (Sähkökvartetti), a device with four instruments inone, and a huge, outrageously 90s sound. (If you doubt that Kurenniemiwas responsible for the Pan Sonic sound, try a little web research.)Kurenniemi's psychedelic tape collage, "Hana," is beautifully ugly anddream-like while the more academic sounding "Preludi" is a piercingmechanical composition in mutating repeating phrases and freeglissandi. "Virsi," another collage piece, shows off the composer'srather Finnish taste for the absurd as well as for the abstract,combining electronic sounds, various samples of voices, movies andmusic with tape effects, a long soaring multi-tone glissando, awonderful plaintive deep feedback solo. Among all the dazzlinginvention and sophistication throughout the CD it's the earliestrecording that I love the most. Inspired by the massive turbines of apower plant, "On-Off" is a live recording of Kurenniemi's manipulatingall the equipment at Helsinki University's Electronic Music Studio atonce. It's all noise with a whirring, throbbing texture, wild feedback,ripping slashes of sound and massive dynamics all with an evocativetight acoustic ambience. This absolutely brilliant recording could wellbe the prototype of modern improvised noise art performance.
