Text, photos and videos: Mikko A.
There was things happening in Finland in the 80’s and 90’s, but what we know as noise scene now did not exist in same form. One notable difference was that there hardly was live activity before last years of the 90’s. Freak Animal festival in 1998 was one of the earliest events when Finnish noise groups started to push forward idea that there should be live activity and year after year more was happening. It took till about 2006 or so until we have seen vastly increased number of all sorts of noise related gigs.
In Lahti city, after two Freak Animal fests, I continued to organize events called Sarven suhinaklubi, but those ended about ten years ago when the bar next to Sarvilevyt store closed. After that Junkyard Shaman organized bunch of things and noise related artists played along music bands, but it took a while before actual noise events returned into Lahti.
This weekend was centered around second Viimaa ja Villasukkia -event, that is organized by artists known as Näsiä. It happens in neat movie theatre type environment. Idea of these event has been to combine noise and noisy experimental sound with some other experimental or acoustic music.
As addition to live performances, earlier during the same day was screening of recent “S/he is Still Her/e” documentary focusing on Genesis P. Orridge.
After these two things were announced, more followed. Artist known as Amek-Maj was turning 40 years old and he had decided to throw himself nice party for friday. Inviting bunch of notable Finnish noise artists to perform at gig located about dozen kilometers from Lahti would ensure decent crow also for Friday when two days and large amount of bands would make trip worthy from longer distance.
Before the live shows started, artist known as Kitu gave short speech. He told the story how as youngsters, new kid moves to the same building he was living and very quickly new kid got the others to get some instruments so they can start doing music. This was mr. Amek-Maj, who years later would be again very similar instigator who’d get him to do noise. First as part of YANA duo, then proceeding also solo work as Kitu.
Sometimes there is notion that noise is or should be purely internal urge. You either want to do it and pursue into experiments… or just don’t. It is true to some extent, but not all true. Many times there may be some sort of spark or very trivial thing that pushes you to give it a try. I was recently reading book dedicated to Greg Scott of Hydra & Final Solution. There was curious story from person who first and foremost was music fan and collector and friend of Greg. Besides the stories related to Greg, he tells about being avid buyer of records at the New York record store where Mark Solotroff was working. One day Solotroff suggests that he should try to do something for Bloodlust! -label. Man is cautious of this suggestion. Not knowing how to do music nor noise, but also never really had passion to pursue into trying. However, this suggestion of Solotroff eventually leads him into making noise and still in 2025 there are raving about greatness of MANGLED CLIT! All it really needed, was Solotroff to suggest a guy, who has never made noise, that he should give it a try. This is one of the beauties of noise, that sometimes it really is just a friend who encourages or suggests, or even label putting open invitation. Think about another little historical nugget of info from Japan. Back in the day Susan Lawly was searching for noise artists for the compilation CD and Yoshida had a friend who had made track for the compilation and suggested him to make some noise and try to get in. That was the beginning of Government Alpha. Very often, when something is happening, there is personal communication and some friends included. Not all about some sort of isolated artistic vision burning, although that may be strong component that keeps one going year after year.
FRIDAY
Haudat started the event. Last time I was at his gig, there was modest gear malfunction. That did not ruin the set, but had effect on it nevertheless. Now it was clear that when he succeeds to do what he was set to do, result is far greater! Reaching even phenomenal levels in the style of processed magnetic tapes, moody slowly moving noisescapes and more ripping contact microphone treatments. When you write this with basic English terms, I fully realize those things could describe almost anything. I could lump Haudat somewhere closer among Altar of Flies, Aaron Dilloway and most notably among the newer wave of Finnish noise acts. Despite operating with largely similar gear or approach, there is still vast difference in the results. Even if being first thing of whole weekend, his set was among the very best.
Jazzhand is obscurity in Finnish scene. For number of years, he would produce highly challenging field recording on ultra limited releases. Many times tape would consist street sounds or other urban racket, which would make most ask themselves… why am I listening to this? Eventually making tapes with notch larger run and with experimental noise recordings that would still lean towards absurd, odd and weird, but also be actually good to listen to! This debut live gig consisted mostly what he has done on former tapes. Mixing in source tapes together, slowly building the set out of pre-existing sounds. At the same time, drinking wine and offering glasses of wine to the audience. Starting with jazzy saxophone melodies and moving into various other sounds makes me always think a bit The Gerogerigegege Hotel Ultra CD. There is the same element of listener being confused that what the hell is this, but also being captured by charming weirdness of it all. Very good!
KITU was doing quite massive harsh sound wall, but suffered a bit about actively working with large number of pedals and making all sorts of acoustic clatter and rattling sounds that most often did not have any effect on sound that came from PA system. He would do stutter-loops, but barely “cut up noise”. Fairly linear set was not bad really, just that the awareness that there seemed to be attempt to do a lot of things that wasn’t heard made this slightly uncomfortable feeling that it doesn’t seem to be working out. If you didn’t watch what he was doing, it did work out fine and at times sound appeared to go just as envisioned.
MOGAO is known for doing quite many different things. If you got exposed to his stuff through his early works and bought something that came out later, it could have been quite surprise. Same for live shows. I would guess nobody was expecting Mogao to do heavy harsh noise blasting with vocal drone layered on bottom and would lay over feedback drenched distorted vocals as the main element. I was thinking it sounded a bit like Jumping Tiger -project. That came to my mind almost immediately even if JT probably isn’t something many would use as reference point. He would read passages from a book, sitting down in front of the gear, but also gradually become more and more intense, standing up, coming on the front of stage and clearly have this intense physical experience that would transmit to viewers. Handful of guys would later refer this as most memorable thing all weekend.
MOOZZHEAD displayed yet again to be master of his craft. If the others had been blasting sound that became “mass”, Moozzhead was certainly blasting as well, but amazingly dynamic sound! Being like fireworks of colorful harsh noise electronics that would explode in fast pace without being blurry mass. There was occasional Incapacitants style high pitched yells and extremely roughly ripping and tearing sounds, while also electric, zip-zap laser sonics. For the Finns, video of slow motion big-boobs victory run may have had very humorous element to it, but indeed it is not a joke, but appreciation of good things in life. Excellent set was among my favorites this weekend!
ROTAT belongs to some of my favorites in Finnish noise, since it has this unusual old school vibe of playful sleaze. I have told the story many times, but when I first got to hear debut tape, tape was thickly painted brown, and wrapped in aluminum foil, and put in cover – mimicking chocolate treat. Flyer of release mentioned references such as Smell & Quim, Odal and Taint. Freak Animal signed band for a release almost instantly, putting out second tape as CD very quickly after ultra limited private edition tape had appeared and proven to be unusual. Still today, pretty much every release of ROTAT consist harsh noise that has at the same time, dose of sleaze, demented humor and weirdness to it. It is rarely dark or maliciously edgy. More like weirdo outsider, who just creates ripping noise out of wading through things that are at the same time harsh, bizarre yet funny. This gig was no exception. Video material he projects on the canvas, makes you smile, for being so odd and sleazy, but it is barely this so called tough guy stuff. More of weird guy stuff. Big guy with colorful shirt and strange mask blasting harsh noise out of table full of gear was the ROTAT trademark – sometimes a bit lost in the jungle of pedals and cables, but always victoriously coming back to blast energetic harsh noise screech in your face. Often you would have this cloud of delay repetitions layered on top of noise, enough rich spectrum of sounds to keep set interesting. I like.
I have seen UMPIO so many times that I may have written most of my observations many times. After his long history in all sorts of alternative music, UMPIO early self financed releases were okay, but not yet phenomenal. It didn’t take long to hear material that felt like this is it. Years before the sort of new wave of Finnish noise was yet fully blossoming, his work resembled like Macronympha with strange outsider music twist and hand drawn graphics. Always morphing into something new, this era of UMPIO is already so personal that it is hard to name drop references anymore. His live actions are most often opposite of what others are doing. Playing within the crowd, lights on, playful and slowly built sets, taking advantage of acoustic elements the audience next to him can see and hear. Blend in electronics, harsh noise, tape sources of modular synths, mixer feedback and other semi-random electronic sounds. Key words tend to be slow start, building tension with composition and intent. He knows where is getting at, and plays according to this goal, but with ability to react on how sound system, room or audience influences the set. My only critic tends to be, that if you got too much of audience, most will not see what he is doing. If you have perfect amount of audience, set will work… perfectly! This time there was enough space, good amount of people and possibility to move around, and really see and hear whole thing.
SATURDAY
After drinking 15 beers and chatting with friends who stayed over till almost morning hours, it was pretty exhausting get up and head to the Sarvilevyt store for the regular opening hours. As a lot of people around Finland has no reason to visit Lahti that often, but they may want to see the store, it was best to keep it open. I had only two hours to keep it open until Genesis P Orridge documentary was sent to start. A lot of people stopped by, as the store is located next to bus- & trainstation where many people arrive.
I had pretty much nothing to do with shows that took place this weekend. Little help for Friday show plus perhaps one thing was something I may have ignited. The good old NOISEXTRA podcast did interview with the makers of S/he is Still Her/e – Genesis P. Orridge documentary.
As usual, I was listening to it right when episode aired and thinking how great it would be to see this on actual cinema. Next week I was talking to organizer responsible for Viimaa is villasukkia event and I mentioned it could be good idea to try buy rights for screening for this film. To have it in theater same day as noise show happens would make sure you could actually get decent audience in relatively small city like Lahti. He thought it was good idea and proposed it to alternative cinema he is working with. They manage to get the rights. I would suspect there has not been so many screenings around the world yet, but due actively working towards the goal, we got GPO documentary with Finnish subtitles running at cinema here this early! Not to mention audience large enough that they didn’t lose money with it.
While watching the documentary, it is funny that GPO says that a lot of interesting things happens when you just let go, and do things. This is very similar to my personal view. Most things in underground culture is based on merely allowing things to start happening. Indeed.
He explains how he established his contact with Burroughs. Sending letter to his address and no expectations what may or may come out of it. But then something happens. He gets reply and… the rest is history so to say. In the chain of events, if you just positively add a spin to it or cumulate energy, guide or cultivate the energies this usually will have results. It all works far better than apathy and pessimism. A lot of things can be ignited with little gesture and it will become something. This chain of events happened, but if it wasn’t Noisextra episode covering documentary, and myself forwarding idea to the next guy, we don’t know how long would we have had to wait for something something or someone else ignite spark of idea to screen this documentary in Finland and in what circumstances it would have been done. I would suspect that perhaps in the film festival or something and therefore missing a lot of noise audience? It is something I tend to recommend people. Activity instead of passivity. Good coincidences happen when things happen, most often something unpredictable.
Of course, it is GPO documentary, not a NOISE documentary. Music is just one element of it. Amount of time there is to cover TG is not huge, but huge amount of visuals and archive material makes film very good. I and couple guys I talked with, felt that music parts of this feel as if directors did think everybody knows the basic information? You’d need to know about industrial music to “get it”. We do not see anything about making of music – except short live clips. There isn’t really details of progression of TG. Neither we go very deep how diverse material was being done by PTV. It’s hard to evaluate how someone who had no idea about the band would see importance of the groups. For sure, many of the old stories have been documented many times. This documentary had stronger emphasis towards later days. It is purely unique film in sense that there simply isn’t people like GPO. It is hard to think how many would be so self aware and obsessive in self documentation. Most guys I know, don’t even have master tapes saved. Some lost even everything they made when they were younger. GPO has even phone calls recorded on tape and tons of video footage of all things. This enables documentary to be so richly filled with old footage and visuals that it escapes the trappings of the talking heads -type of documentaries. This could work as example for future documentarists who’d wanna make information also look interesting. In times when we do have a lot of video interviews with talking heads on the screen, pushing documentary into something is could be best.
After the screening, I had bunch of out of town customers come to store so had to run to open the doors again for an hour before the actual gig is about to start!
VIDEO OF SATURDAY: https://youtu.be/cTmRivWhUR0?si=QylBCPShOLsW_KP4
The organizer of the gig is artist known as NÄSIÄ. He might not be well known outside Finland due very limited discography. His work is well established within Finnish scene. Self released tapes with hand printed j-cards with lino-cut and stamping methods. This hand made approach is combined with simple and very physical sound elements. Using acoustic source or droning feedback and often merely reverb or/and delay. Some of his works made me think about K.Mizutani works, which almost never happens. It is noise, but barely the sonic storm known as harsh noise. Couple tapes and compilation song, are good, but now his live shows are probably the best display of his work. Due delicate nature of the sound, he fits into sit-through cinema gig perfectly. Everybody is quiet. Everybody is sitting still. Näsiä slowly crafts his surprisingly multilayered sound. Field recordings, bird sounds, contact mic, noise loops, combined with landscape footage on big screen. I can’t be for sure, but I feel there was some sort of advantage taken of surround sound? You didn’t hear that from other artists, but with Näsiä, some of the sound appeared to come from stage, while occasionally it felt that the nature sounds came from another angle, almost another dimension, so to say.
After short break I had my first opportunity to see HEPPAKIRJAT live. Despite the goofy name, it is excellent project! Many people may have not heard about it as artist has preferred to self release his tapes and mostly just trade them with others at the gigs. This show, was true audio-visual experience. I doubt it was planned, but when he started, it felt like 100% continuation of what Näsiä was doing. Birds singing, fairly calm noise loops and building atmosphere with video footage of nature.. or more precisely forests being cut into logs and these logs drifting in the rivers and the more video progressed, it started to have like this Koyaanisqatsi -vibe. The world is suddenly turning ”out of balance”, so to say. Resources being harvested and quickly video is moving towards old school industrial society where massive factories are steaming and creating smoke. Needless to say, noise itself getting more and more tension and loudness. Loops of sound, tape manipulations and physically adjusting sound creation. Video didn’t feel to have moralistic perspective, just display things how it were. Of course it did enable all sorts of critical thinking, regardless was it intention. Really excellent show, one of the best of weekend!
SAMULI NÄSI received massive applauds after his acoustic guitar performance ended. I’ve been told this type of american primitive guitar playing is fairly common and old style, but since we never really get to hear it over here in live setting, it really seems to appeal to a lot of people. Open tune, use of slide, bizarre melody structures, massive avalanches of strumming the 12-string guitar. Not being expert on guitar music at all, I don’t even have vocabulary needed to describe the deep nuances of the style. For me it is nor only unusual, but very very good. Artist has only published one tape, but he was saying more should be recorded at some point.
NUORI VERI started quiet and at some point I was feeling… is this supposed to be this quiet? Later turns out, it was not surpposed to be. He performed some old songs and some new material. Old reel-to-reel tapes, scythe, some other acoustic sources and vocals. Being so quiet compared to everybody else, was curious element here, since people really focused on listening. It was almost as if he’d do ”acoustic set” on theatre stage. Even more unusual is the approach, where artist talks to audience between tracks. Emil Beaulieau and Bloodyminded are the only ones I can think in context of noise who will talk between songs, directly to audience. Nuori Veri lyrics themselves feel to be done for communicating with audience, but stopping the music between tracks and discussing about ongoing collaboration recording and the ideas behind it, is another level. Some guy mentioned feeling its almost like stand up comedy piece, when he cracked joke somewhere in-between.
I know some feel that any casual discussion between songs will break the illusion that art has created. I feel a bit different about it. It may not fit to everything, but I feel strongly that some of the material is not there for purpose of creating illusion. One could even argue that adding level of ordinary reality would not break illusion, but simply prove there was no illusion to begin with. That we are actually dealing with something real. That the words that was narrated between songs that displays artist as uhm… ”regular man” may underline that also his lyrics are not merely dreams, theatre and illusion, but something that is as tightly part of him as the casual discussion. This same logic works for the music. If the lyrics are direct continuation of ones persona and worldview, there is no illusion to break, so to say. Merely underlined that it is really artists who is expressing himself, not some sort of made up persona. Nuori Veri also handed out basket full of A5 zines including Rural Resistance manifesto and other Nuori Veri information and visuals. Due there was over 100 people at the gig, I doubt everybody got it, so it was good to be there in front row. Despite volume could have been way way louder, in this form, live set probably made people more focused on conscious listening and also discussing about the set later on.
MARJA AHTI was something I have been waiting long time to see. I got pretty much all her records, but somehow never happened to see live shows. I was a bit disappointed. I think it is just a fact, that the ”real deal sound artists”, tend to be way less interesting when they are creating sound on stage, compared to… ehm “noise acts”… Largely to do with office worker look, working with laptop, and somehow ending up into this approach to sound where many of the guys will sigh “Uuuh.. ableton!”.
I fully realize you can do a lot of things with that program and computers in general, but there is something in how it directs makers to go, that I do not like. Someone could have same feelings about tape manipulation or distortion pedals, metal junk and so on. Certainly these all may direct you towards specific routines and methods that are common. However, when you got the someone doing recognizable “ableton live mix”, there is often specific timbre, tones, texture and so on. It may be simply matter of taste, but whatever neat micro sounds and physical sources there were, it always had highly unpleasant flavor of digital processing of that most common type. What Marja Ahti did here, wasn’t horrible, simply something that reeks of experimental music of Finland YLE radio show frekvenssi type of scene that I feel is far behind the creativity found from noise scene.
Perhaps easiest proof of this was when APRAPAT played next. He presented the exact opposite. If you don’t like saturated and decayed tape sound, vintage mixer compression, sound of physical noise objects, then you may not like this. But really, I doubt there was such people at the gig at all, hah! So think about broken glass in finest tradition of 80s The Haters coming from source tapes, various rugged noises and voices and eventually Aprapat playing piles of glass and scrap metal metal pieces with he feet, while adjusting sound on vintage mixers. Blending all elements so perfectly, you’d hope he would get back into studio action and capture some of these sessions into studio recording! Very few artists have so carefully tuned taste and vision of the timbre and color of each sound element. Always full of rust and dirt, but always also delightful and not dark. Extremely good gig ended into organ drone type of uplifting part that felt almost like sermon for the noise.
There was bunch of different pieces used in backing video. On the Special Interests video documentation you can see fragment with Fabio fitness video action. After the show, we were talking about the lethal power of his face, infamous goose incident. Some people thought I was joking, but I did encourage to go check some facts from internet.
After the show, there was 100 people and no way that people could fit into any single bar in Lahti, so quick decision not to worry who you are going to see and who will end up in other side of town. I and about 10 guys ended up into nearest small pub that was both near empty and nothing too fancy. It did have karaoke, and night proceeded into heavy duty karaoke action where even foreign noise visitors got to show skills of panzer growling Motörhead song, hah..
For those interested in Finnish noise and artists mentioned in the report, as usual, the best places to buy Finn noise at the moment are satatuhatta.net and Freak Animal’s nhfastore.net
Many times supporting artists directly is great, but current shipping rates are so horrible, it may be wiser to buy from distributors that have more titles available.