Very sad news:
QuoteFollowing a long and prolific career, experimental-music groundbreaker Mika Vainio, best known as one half of Pan Sonic, has died. Reps for the Finnish musician confirmed to the media that Vainio passed away in France on Wednesday (April 12), though his cause of death remains unknown. He was 53.
Mika was a great artist. Relistening some favourite works of his today.
Pan Sonic - Kesto (2004)I usually relisten the 1st CD of this huge box set, since it contains the most dynamic material in the vein of rhythmic noise done right, but actually I'm quite positive about the whole style-shifting scheme of this diverse release, dwelling into various areas of Vainio's interests. It sort of moves from dynamic to static, starting with high-voltage energy blasts from the 1st CD which I've mentioned, then cooling down to a quite robotic and mechanically lifeless take on 80s electro-funk (partytime-feeling totally removed), and moving further into cold abstraction territory afterwards, getting rid of the rhythm and finally freezing into the motionless glassy drone present on the 4th CD. I like the concept and enjoy many of Vainio's laid-back, texture-based minimal works, but on this particular release his thunderous Tesla-blasting on the 1st disc steals the show for me. Powerful energy-sparkling synth-riffs, urban beats with heavyweight groove, some experiments with wall-of-sound production... By the way, there are some tribute-tracks which point to Vainio's diverse sources of inspiration, respectful nods to the artists whose work he enjoys and with whom he eventually collaborated with - japanese guitar terrorist Keiji Haino and Alan Vega from Suicide, for example. Of course, Vainio doesn't merely replicate their style, he rather recreates certain qualities of their music with his own instrumentation and working methods. "Centralforce", tribute to Haino, morphs this cult artist's trademark string noisestorm into Vainio's peculiar idea to combine minimal echo-heavy beats with contrasting explosions of synth-wailing madness, which sounds like some kind of surreal railway carousel with a multiton train going off tracks. Close by the overall effect to Hainio's wall-of-noise punishment? Probably, in some way. Mere copy without imaginative approach? Directly the opposite.
Ø - Olento (1996)An example of minimalistic and subtle side of Vainio's work which I enjoy. The peculiar thing about Vainio's music is that it often gives an impression of something totally opposed to "human" or "organic" by nature, something cold, strict and technologically sterile, but if we look through the interviews with Vainio - he never bothered to create some sort of "man-machine" image and admitted the emotional backing of his music. In the material itself sometimes it's hard to get that feeling, and sometimes I actually prefer the "mechanical" aesthetic, but a hint of melancholy which shows itself in "Ø" more clearly than in other Vainio's projects can also be an enjoyable aesthetic component. It never gets a strong emphasis, no dramatic shit here, but some feeling of urban weariness and confusion is indeed conveyed. All the sound textures / subtle ambience layers are cold, bleak and slightly unnerving, the hypnosis of the monotonous kick-drum pulsation doesn't create any dancefloor-feeling at all, sample choices are directed at escalating tension - quickened "danger-reacting" heartbeat for example, some beatless texture-based tracks dwell into isolationist ambient territory and envoke some paralyzing, dizzy feeling. On a rare occasion syntwork gives a hint of melancholic melody, but it almost never gets a significant development and rests in "more of a texture" zone. The image I get from this music is a sleepy pre-dawn megapolis, a short hour of quietness before the next urban life cycle starts to gain momentum.
