Terrestrial (2023–) is an ongoing series of environmental compositions for poetry readings and spoken word performances.

Each reading is accompanied by a unique, situation/site-specific soundscape composition that draws from the content of the performed poetry as well as from the local environment and culture. The compositions are generated and diffused live during the reading, and they often incorporate the voice(s) of the performer(s) in treated and abstracted ways into the music.

The idea is to complement the oral performance and the poetic content by creating an immersive sonic world around the reading, and by introducing an added elevation, expansion and/or counterpoint to them, if necessary.

The inaugural performance took place in Sähkö #42 at Vakiopaine, Jyväskylä FI, 9 Sept 2023. In this legendary poetry club (at this similarly legendary venue), a multi-award-winning poet and author Sanna Karlström read from her newest poetry collection Pehmeät kudokset (Otava 2022), accompanied by me on live electronics.

An excerpt of the music performed live in Sähkö #42. This is an instrumental studio mix and presents just one of the possible variations of the music.

The music is made of environmental sounds recorded around the city of Jyväskylä in the summer and autumn 2023; it also incorporates elements of Karlström’s voice, Petteri Mäkiniemi’s Ginette, and Petals (from my album Interspaces).

The footage in this video painting originates from Monet’s garden in Giverny, filmed in October 2020, and from the “rainforest” of Jyväskylä in September 2023.

The Night Seeks / Rust on a Sieve (2023).

Another excerpt of the live music for a poetry reading / music for spoken words. The title is taken from the poetry in question: ‘Yö etsii ruosteista siivilää’ by Salla Kaarin Kalkas.

The recordings used in this piece consist of a salmon being smoked over a lakefront fire and a wood stove sauna being prepared at a Finnish summer cottage; toads singing in a rainy spring night in Badore, Ajah, Lagos; a grand piano being prepared (“a prepared piano”, after John Cage) during the festive season at the Cité des arts in Paris; making a sound installation in a forest in Belgium; having sleepless nights in a hot London summer due to the sheer excitement of our band’s rehearsal the next day and the new sonic material I’d prepared for them.

The video painting accompanying this instrumental version is also by me, made of the lofi photographs I took while making the music.

‘Terrestrial’ as a concept is inspired by the philosopher, anthropologist and sociologist Bruno Latour. In his book Down To Earth: Politics in the New Climatic Regime (Polity Press 2018), Latour proposes the Terrestrial as a new attractor solving the traditional dichotomy between Local and Global, left and right. To Latour, the Terrestrial means inhabiting both scales at the same time and “attaching oneself to a particular patch of soil on the one hand [and] having access to the global world on the other”.

Terrestrial (2023 – ongoing)

Composition, field recordings, treatments, mixing and production: Ilpo Jauhiainen

Voice and words: Sanna Karlström (tbc)

Ginette (composition and performance): Petteri Mäkiniemi

Supported by Keski-Suomen Kirjailijat ry (tbc)