Environmental music

My new album SIINTO is out now. Hooray!

This Bandcamp release will shortly be followed by all the other streaming platforms (incl. the unethical Spotify).

This has been my most challenging release to date, in terms of its scope and complexity. But I’m utterly thrilled with the results – and in the process I discovered a new kind of musical thinking that will form the basis of my unfolding doctoral studies from now on.

I hope you will enjoy this sonic journey (it may require some time and space, I admit).

Warmth X

SIINTO (Finnish for ‘shimmer’, ‘dawn’, ‘reflection’, ‘glow’) presents three compositions – or ‘geomusical objects’, as I began to hear them – that play with the notion of music as an environment and environment as music, exploring the potential between geography and music.

The tracks are long (20 minutes), with the ‘hooks’ occurring slowly and gradually over the course of the entire tracks; this is to better cater to the current demand for 2-minute songs with instant 15-second hooks.

(for a new culture is to be found in the spaces, silences and ruptures too incomprehensible to the optimisation algorithms)

It is meant as music to swim in, roam through, get lost in or bored by, zoom in/out of, journey with, discover alongside other things, be exited and returned to at any point.

Siinto and its variation Saraste (‘morning’, ‘dusk’, ‘first light’) originate from my artist residency at KulttuuriKauppila in Ii, Finland, July-August 2024: while there, I was invited to create a site-specific live performance that drew its inspiration and most of its sonic material from the local geography of Ii. The title track also features the voice of a dear friend who was born in Ii, abstracted from a poetry recording we had made years earlier; and while in the performance the voice travelled as a clearer figure in a landscape, here it has become more ecological – a sustaining part of that environment.

Kajo (‘soft light’, ‘reflection’) forms the backing track I created for poet Sanna Karlström’s spoken word performance at Sähkö #42 in Jyväskylä, Finland, September 2023. The idea has again been for a situation/site-specific soundscape composition, drawing thematically and sonically from the local environment and culture – and, in this case, from the content of Karlström’s poems as well. The collaboration was made possible by my residency at the Writers’ House/Kirjailijatalo in Jyväskylä, May-December 2023.

A particularly vital layer in these geomusical objects emerges from the ‘stratified’ recordings of Ginette, originally performed by Petteri Mäkiniemi (the inventor of this wonderful electronic instrument).

My deepest gratitude to Petteri Mäkiniemi, Heta Kaisto, Sanna Karlström, Gregor Zemljic, Diego Castro-Magas and Alicia Reyes for bringing this album to life; the Orpheus Instituut; and to KulttuuriKauppila and Kirjailijatalo for their transformative residencies and generous invitations for me to engage meaningfully with their respective localities.

Thank you to everyone who came to visit my poetry-sound installation PIENIÄ TOSIASIOITA (“small truths/facts”) at Taavettilan riihi in Jyväskylä this weekend. It was a delight to see so many visitors attending (despite the glorious summer weather outside), some even spending hours inside immersed in the experience.

The feedback I received from the audience was overtly positive, at times even rapturous which was all heart-warming (of course, people withhold any criticism they might have – I always wonder why is that?). People commended the way the voices, words and music kept emerging and unfolding in the space, creating an immersive, never-ending spatial and aural experience.

The adjective I kept hearing was that of ‘meditative’: this one author even called the installation as a kind of “meditative opera” (as in opera the narrative voice often forms the central musical element). From now on, I shall call my poetry installations as that: meditative operas.

Personally I’m very pleased with how the whole installation – poems, voices, music, their generative evolution and acoustic diffusion, architecture, environment, light etc. – turned out. Even though I’d already been listening to the piece for hours and hours while making it, I’d still find myself utterly immersed in it, captivated by how it kept producing novel combinations of its textual and sonic elements. Version 2.0 is already in the pipeline (upon request).

The space was lit by the natural light coming through the windows, and it only occurred to me during the exhibition that what an integral new layer that formed! As the piece kept unfolding within the space throughout the day, simultaneously the light kept softly changing, creating a generative experience of its own: at times it felt utterly magical.

Thank you to Keski-Suomen Kirjailijat ry and Villa Rana for making this possible. And thank you to Petri Turunen (from Keski-Suomen Kirjailijat ry) for initiating, curating and organising this project: your work was invaluable. And naturally, thank you to all the poets, whose words – spoken and written – kept inspiring me throughout the process (when my music continued failing): they made the piece the novelty and success it was.

My deepest gratitude.