Sontag Shogun x Lau Nau :: Päiväkahvit (Beacon Sound)

Päiväkahvit is a tender, richly textured ambient album blending sparse instrumentation, ethereal vocals, and intimate field recordings—from birdsong to children playing—capturing the joy of shared, everyday moments. Created by Sontag Shogun and Lau Nau during a 2019 retreat in Finland, the album flows like a sonic diary of peaceful afternoons, meditative moods, and quietly magical collaborations.

Textures of life and light

 

A dreamy mixture of souls, with a sparse guitar/xylophone/piano atmosphere and generously ethereal vocals, put with field recordings of life, such as kids playing, containing lots of casual exuberance, precious moments now frozen here to hear. A mixture of recordings made around the house, with a unique and thoughtful approach to meditative atmospheres, including some interesting ambient pop experiments. The music suggests that we are all spending some good times with friends while they present their musical compositions and the kids run around. There is one formal live performance before an actual audience included too.

The larger story begins when the trio of Sontag Shogun gathered at Laura Naukkarinen‘s home on the Finnish island of Kimitoön in the summer of 2019. They had not the slightest inkling that the world was about to change irretrievably with the onset of a long-predicted pandemic the following year. By the time their collaborative album, Valo Siroutuu (“The Light Scatters“), was released nearly two years later, the intimate and reflective nature of the work they had created together had taken on new meaning, resonating powerfully (and quietly) with a world in which the proverbial cracks in the wall only seem to be widening.

Päiväkahvit, or “afternoon coffee,” completes the story that began with Valo Siroutuu, featuring 9 songs from the original sessions as well as 4 interpretive reworks courtesy of Amulets, Fadi Tabbal, Post-Dukes, and Jeremy Young. Available digitally and in a one-time vinyl pressing of 300 copies, the album flows fearlessly from beginning to end, richly textured and immersive, Päiväkahvit positively crackles with warmth and a sense of creative embrace.

“We invite the listener into the sauna, out to the garden and onto the trampoline, to sit by the water’s edge and to take a coffee in the waning afternoon light, and to stay as long as they like.”

Cracking sounds of the fire and a sleepy piano ::

Opening inside the “Sauna Motif I” (2:24), I hear the cracking sounds of the fire and a sleepy piano, very easy going. We are actually in the sauna, adjusting the controls, the piano is there too, and Lau Nau brings the loving atmosphere and mystery. The title track is about coffee, the keyboard arrives, the feeling is steady, slow and relaxing: “Päiväkahvit” (2:18), the title track, brings a calm peaceful private time sitting with birds, xylophone, piano, tapping and clicking.

“Afternoon Springs” (1:52) is full of bubbly young souls, chattery kids, repetitive utterances, kid rhymes, the spirit of kids being joyful. I do not speak the language they do, but I enjoy the vicarious fun we are all having and I am curious to understand more new words in their lively exchanges. The kids are playing when a motorcycle arrives. “Go north” (5:00) is more musical, guys with guitars and stuff, singing and playing, finding layers of electronics and effects on the voices. I think there are some odd choirs up there too, calling souls to travel to new lands.

“They came in through the front door (Fadi Tabbal Rework)” (3:36) puts together birds in the darkness, piano activity, the sounds of people, and other field recordings. Lau Nau starts singing when the electronic keyboards start steaming, a car goes by, the piano continues to be active, layers with birds and lady ghosts, the sounds of nature with the atmospheric ethereal voices and electronic rainbow sensations. Time next for some traversing of the jungle, with layers of vibrating textures and impressions of instruments, flickering lights and colors, “Tropic movements (Amulets Rework)” (4:49) suggests dreamy swirls of electronic clouds with hints of exotic birds, forms come along and take new shapes, working from mist into complicated sound layers and forms while a swirl continues throughout. I hear echoes and star creatures, buzz drones phase in and expand, layers get richer. Now there is something big out here in the cloud or fog. Invisible, but I can hear it, taking larger form and flickering into a solid caldron of audio stew. The fog clears and we fade to black.

 

Next, sweet little birds refreshing quiet delicate listening the natural world provides, maybe a pond, minimalistic. “Bottles + birds” (2:07) brings in a dawn tableaux. “Sauna Motif II” (2:29) brings back the sizzle of the hot sauna, a guitar playing, people talking in the distance, and a synth joins in. The sounds of ghostly voices soaring nearby, a strange steaming hiss, bits of mumbling bleed into the dark mix. It must be hot in there. The guitar has control, making way for the haunting voices, the electronics push the atmosphere into a new world.

A gentle perfect dream, “The Vala River (Чудья Жени – Post-Dukes Rework)” (2:50) with lots of instruments plus Lau Nau peeking out here and there. Everyone is playing, there is a nice chaos, melodies keep flowing in new ways, like a nice calm bright river. We get to the great river and melt into it, and the river flows on and on. “Badminton on the shore” (3:46) begins with the kids playing, sounds of merry exuberance, and ting! A lonely ringing metal object. Mom comes into the scene and the game picks up, the kids play and carry on, and there is another bell.

Weaving voices and tones ::

Sometimes Lau Nau sings, the birds do too, weaving voices and tones, with deep echo at times. I might hear a guy talking a little. “Miten aloittaa” (4:49) gets us started on something new, with many interweaving voices flickering and brightening the mysteries, with vague media voices and the sound collage brings a transit station, with a message about boarding the train or tram or trolley. Mind your step, please hold the hand rail.

Now the piano is the foundation and the sounds are riding and floating about, under layers of feathery rhythms created by combining clicks pops and scrapes, while Lau Nau sings over and above “A pale view of dem hills (Jeremy Young Rework)” (4:57), The piano carries us into the endless hills with a complex beat experiment. Lau Nau is back, ghosting a bit while the kids are popping in and out of the mix, the dreamy piano is the main thing, interlocking components, instruments and her voice, the kids voices, hidden in the percussive rattles, scrapes, and clicks.

 

Empty space for a moment, maybe some water splashing or rowing, waves caress the shore, xylonoodles with humming or intoning voices merge, something is building coming up from below to linger, over the water, “Veden yli” (3:27). The voices float around, something is in the water moving about, tapping as tiny bells mingle with splashes, maybe rowing sounds, an easy relaxed mood with ghosts of people doing things, sounds of objects being acted upon, a guitar haunts field recordings with bell tones and water. Now the choir floats closer slowly, the bell instrument lingers longer as we continue forms take shape, tapping and clicking live sounds in the field, they diminish and end the studio tracks of the album.

The light is scattered, “Valo Siroutuu” (live) (12:39), is the magnum opus is a live performance, everybody is here, guitar birds ghost girl water splashing sounds, very relaxing atmosphere, piano and birds carry the theme. Naturally the sampled kid-joy sounds bubble up in the mix, the birds are larger here, instruments emerge slowly, as we are floating in bliss along with a live audience.

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Päiväkahvit is available on Beacon Sound. [Bandcamp]