★Sahko Recordings
Oleva (2LP)
Originally released back in 2008, now repressed! Mika Vainio (1963-2017) was best known as half of Finnish cutting edge experimental electronica duo Pan_sonic. Ø is Vainio’s original solo pseudonym dedicated to his native label Sähkö Recordigs since 1993. Where Pan_sonic uses pure, industrial and sometimes harsh sound elements, Ø reveals Mika Vainio’s deeper, passionate and sometimes even romantic side.
3 Raw Takes
This EP features 3 unreleased early takes from Martin Revs Les Nymphes -album from 2008. Tracks are early 2006 stripped down versions. Sähkö dig out previously unreleased versions of Martin Rev’s ‘Les Nymphes’ cuts from cold storage, spanning singular takes on rock ’n roll techno, dark drone ambience and a slow rave peach by the Suicide legend.We almost mistook the swaggering nine minutes of ’Sophie Eagle (Early Version)’ for a Theo Parrish number, but nah, it’s definitely Martin Rev getting dow…
Kiteet
The second in a series of posthumous Mika Vainio releases on Säkhö, celebrating the work of a true, electronic music visionary. The tracks on Kiteet, released under Vainio’s Ø alias, were initially written for the 1997 Snow-Crash exhibition in Milan but never used. Five of the eight tracks found their way onto later albums, three have never been released anywhere. As you would expect from an artist with Vainio’s immense stature and pioneering legacy, Kiteet is a mesmerising listen, built from so…
Addressing the Fallen Angel
Renowned EVP expert and dark interpreter CM von Hausswolff gets down to the nitty gritty of morality in art with a fascinating, newly augmented collection of sound installation recordings made 2001-2003 in response to Stockhausen’s controversial comments on 9/11 and now released by Sähko. ‘Addressing the Fallen Spirit’ employs an oblique collage of recordings from various installation works as the vehicle for Carl Michael Von Hausswolff’s thoughts on the intersection of art and morality. It’s o…
Arc 1
Finnish label Sähkö Recordings is launching a new archival series of unreleased work from its co-founder Mika Vainio. The late Vainio left behind plenty of unreleased material after his passing in 2017. Arc 1 represents the first in a series of releases that draw on Vainio’s archives. The material here was constructed for a 1994 radio project, entitled Ambient City, that Vainio performed as Ø. Both sides here begin with perturbed ambient synth-scapes - grumbling LFOs, digital noise, that sort of…
City of Women II
Jimi Tenor and a group of friends visited twice at Edward Vesala’s unique home (Sound and Fury Studio) in Korkeakoski in southwest Finland. It was winter 1998. Matti Knaapi and Jimi Tenor have been designing and building instruments since the early '80s. They brought vanful of apparatus to Sound and Fury which already had a large collection of Vesala’s exotic and self built instruments. During the two rather extreme sessions 13 songs got finished. The first part was released in year 2000. Sadly …
Kantamoinen
Kantamoinen is perhaps the most intimately beautiful yet little known LP in MIka Vainio's Ø canon, bridging the gap between his classic ‘90s minimal techno productions - compiled in the vital Metri and Olento collections - and the project’s subsequent turn to more ambient, kosmic and dub wise dimensions in the coolly brilliant Oleva and Konstellaatio albums.
Upon original release it was an immediate favourite of ours - a go-to disc for hazy daydreaming and post-club head salvage alike, dr…