This is a flowing audio scrapbook soundscape, a travelogue which fits in with the ambient genre, but what makes this unique is the way these song-writers have assembled this listening experience.
A singular continuous listening experience
A set of sound pictures, like a box of snapshots and colorful bits of paper that have sounds, all found together at the bottom of a box at the end of the season, or discovered at the beginning of the new season. Or eventually, one distant day, discovered to somehow reveal how the world sounded way back then. There are 12 tracks, arranged as two sides of an album, which work well as a singular continuous listening experience, thereby advancing the concept of an album. In the past with an album what you got was song-based. This is a flowing audio scrapbook soundscape, a travelogue which fits in with the ambient genre, but what makes this unique is the way these song-writers have assembled this listening experience. There are songs, which each can stand alone, and when listened together as a flowing whole the pieces weave into the natural sounds of these friends, being together, perhaps on a summer holiday.
Laura Naukkarinen :: vocals, violin, modular synth, glockenspiel
Jesse Perlstein :: vocals, synths, field recordings, tape
Jeremy Young :: guitar, oscillators, radio, amplified objects, tape
Ian Temple :: piano, Moog minitaur
In places there is a beat, but this is all about listening and not dancing all the time. Maybe swaying sometimes, and smiling. There are the sounds of people talking amongst themselves, and there are conventional songs with lyrics. A time in the summer with special friends. Lau Nau (Laura Naukkarinen) is a vocalist who lives in Finland, and Sontag Shogun, who are several creative guys that have a place in New York City, have come for a music-making visit. They make music, this album is a mixture of singing songs, playing instruments, and collecting interesting sounds and recordings of real life, field recordings of being together. Sometimes there are people talking, sometimes there are ducks in the water or just walking sounds. This is a very innovative blend of these creative people and what they offer for listening.
Available digitally; as a limited edition LP; and in print form as a 20-page full color booklet of writing, photography, and artwork by the artists, as well as the album art by Berlin-based designer Anna Bernhardt. The album will also be available as a compact disc from the Japanese label Ricco or in North America via Beacon Sound.
A very innovative blend ::
Now for our travelogue. “Badminton Motif” (2:20) Field recordings of fun, perhaps in the backyard, with a subtle and almost incidental emerging musical context. “Leikkikalu” (4:45) (“Toy”) A drone merges with the field recordings, then what I hear are mostly drones that merge with sustained vocal notes, layering into deeper skies, finding a way into themes and more instruments, the sounds of kids playing, who visit and then take over. “Dusk Bells” (1:27) Birdcalls. A single wooden tap later a glockenspiel’s metallic ting. Simple is good, there is nothing excessively dense anywhere on the album.
“Valo Siroutuu” (6:36) (“The Light Scatters”) Birds. The quiet momentum of “Dusk Bells” continues, adding a drone breeze, adding a steel-stringed wooden guitar and singing. As I started to mention earlier, the field recordings flow gently behind the song, which is sung in two languages, by two people with a glowing growing collection of layers, the odd field recordings fade and almost vanish midway through this title track and the fully arranged (violin, glockenspiel, piano, etc) song takes over.
“Suddenly, This Darkness Comes Over Your Face” (5:06) The track delicately fades in, electronic tinkling and distant voices of people in conversation, glowing voices float over the montage. A beat emerges, at a walking pace. The voices take over, the tempo changes, the textures float upwards, until the voices are back to continue the chant. Fade to ghosts.
“Hämeentie” (1:06) (a street on Lau’s island of Kimitoön) There is a machine beeping in the field mix, we are indoors somewhere, maybe a clinic? The beeping might be medical equipment. I hear a backwards voice, something abrupt. The word Hämeentie googles up a street in Helsinki. “On Perceiving Time” (6:12) Slow fade-in to an electronic keyboard joined by a classical guitar played slowly. She is back, singing sweetly.
He is back and singing sweetly too. They are singing a dialog in English, complaining about waiting, the background proceeds with the ever changing textures and some field recordings, sometimes with people noises, the main thing is the song being sung. “Aaltoja” (1:08) (“Waves”) I think I hear distant geese in flight, the glockenspiel rings, eventually a guitar is slowly strummed which leads into the next track. “Hidas Laulu” (4:27) (“Slow song”) Piano over the gentle collage, a song emerges, featuring sounds like lake water and birds, a chicken clucks, and people are talking behind the piano which has been joined by singing drone voices, a piano themed collage of voices and instruments with interesting other sounds here and there.
“Kuiskaan Itseleni” (4:59) (“I whisper to myself”) Starts with plastic sounding electronic sweeps, which fade to become a gentle song with guitar and piano, things keep layering in, an accordion, more sustained-note vocals. There are short harsh breaths added into the mix which sounds like someone you want to be with is very close to your ear. The interesting layers increase and linger and the singing continues, the mood is sad or just thoughtful. “Hares Motif” (2:00) To me it sounds like the instrument is a harmonium, accompanied by the nylon strings of a classical guitar. The sounds of water and people talking and everyone proceeds along to the finish of the track. “Trampoliinilla Ikuisuuteen” (3:33) (“On the trampoline for eternity”) — an electronic organ drones a slow melody, there are layers added, piano chords, more organ drones, things are building and ascending towards the end, eventually the sound of walking on something crunchy emerges and takes over, and is the last thing heard.
Valo Siroutuu is available on Beacon Sound. [Bandcamp]
