Startling Moniker

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this disc, so let’s get a few facts out of the way– it’s the fifth release for Finnish label Luovaja. Its sound is dominated by cheesy keyboards of the Casio variety. To an English speaker, at least one track sounds like it has the lyric “Dookie poo” repeated over and over in a silly voice, while a cuckoo clock signals the 4 o’clock hour.

Clearly, not the best candidate as crossover material.

At its strongest, “Paavalin kirjeitä Tiitukselle” produces some heavily-layered chaotic moments, densely packed with conflicting noises. “Heraaminen,” for instance; descends into a fury of crashing cymbals, roller coaster screams, and bleeping towards its finish. “Kaiken Sen Ma Menetin,” (of the aforementioned “dookie poo” lyric) melds a mellow synth melody with spastic drum twiddling, all while introducing distressed breaking noise and female vox loops under the main drunken vocal. It’s a terrible mess, but it hangs together like a machine that has to work, no matter how many inept repairs need be made.

Unfortunately, the rest of the album doesn’t seem to have had such effort put into it. Screwing around with the tape rolling sounds pretty much the same in any language, and the lack of direction will make for a difficult listen to any but the most wishy-washy of listeners.

Still, this is the age of the CDR. If Luovaja wants to put out 50 of these, I’m inclined to look on the bright side of it. “Paavalin kirjeitä Tiitukselle” is far from being a fully-realized album, but the chance to hear new artists constructing their work from the ground up in real time is an opportunity unique to this generation of listeners. There may be some good in this– but only time will tell.

This entry was posted on April 7, 2008 at 9:52 am and is filed under experimental, experimental music, improvisation, label, music review. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.