Pan Sonic Kesto

PAN SONIC RELEASE NEW ALBUM, KESTO, AVAILABLE ONLY AS 4CD BOX SET

PAN SONIC
New Album: KESTO (234:48:4)
Release Date: May 18, 2004

"There is no theory for PAN SONIC. We have no plan. We just make the music."
(Mika Vainio)

KESTO (234:48:4) is a brand new quartet of compact discs from PAN SONIC (Mika Vainio
and Ilpo Vaisanen) available only as one complete set.

This is an epic work in the true sense of the word.

The title means "strength" or "duration", entirely appropriate in both the size of this work (over four hours of new music) and the scale of the band's adventures since the release of their last album Aaltopiiri in 2001.

Directly after Aaltopiiri's release, uninspired by the traditional rock and roll performance circuit they had so elegantly mastered since their public birth in 1995, PAN SONIC undertook a mammoth round-the-world tour that was organized via an enthusiastic response to two small adverts in The Wire music magazine. The adverts invited promoters,
fans or the merely curious to offer the band a range of far flung locations and exotic venues in which to perform. In exchange, the band asked only for the promise of accommodation and a percentage of any profits that the event might generate. They received hundreds of offers, which resulted in a eight-week-long expedition that took them from their base in Barcelona to Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland , Papeete, Easter Island, Buenos Aires, Tijuana, Mexico City, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Princeton University, and Reykjavik. In the course of the tour they played in every type of venue, from major concert halls to back street "rumbatini" shacks, gathering inspirational atmospheres from a wide and wild variety of events including a monkeys' tea party, an Easter Island shebeen, late night hot springs and frozen snow baths, audio recordings of the famous stone heads of Easter Island and the lo rider cars of Tijuana, and working with a 40-member Icelandic choir.
They had fully expected to continue on for another four weeks by driving to events in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Turkey, Israel and Greece, but Mika Vainio fell ill through the physical and mental stress of almost constant travel and performances, causing the Eastern Bloc section to be cancelled. The travelogue recommenced in Istanbul and was completed in Athens, but Mika vowed from there on in that touring would consist of no more than four consecutive performances.

After a lengthy period of recovery Mika relocated himself and their studio to Berlin from their first temporary home of Barcelona, where they had moved in 1998 to escape the long Finnish winters in their hometown of Turku, 100 miles west of Helsinki.

The original discussions of ideas for the new recordings were based around Mika's favourite painter Francis Bacon and his use of the triptych (a format Bacon used a number of times in his lifetime). Always pushing the boundaries, PAN SONIC were inspired to go on to record a fourth part.

Those familiar with PAN SONIC's work may detect a correlation between their use of sound and Bacon's use of paint; the KESTO recordings represent a substantial new depth and vitality in the quality of their sound palette that brings a newfound life force and delicate violence into their music.

PAN SONIC have remained true to their original and pioneering use of their special handmade analogue tone generators, more old radio set than synthesisers, with the occasional use of digital samplers for the more rhythmic sounds. They still record live to DAT tape in real time with no overdubbing.

The sounds within are complemented by the award winning photography of fellow Finnish artist Anne Hamalainen.

Meet the "quadruplets":

(As PAN SONIC often use a form of slang or "twisted" Finnish words, for this release they have added their nearest understanding of the Finnish meaning in English wherever possible to help listeners to integrate the source atmosphere into the tracks)

KESTO (234:48:4) = 234 minutes, 48 seconds, 4 milliseconds

CD1
01. Rahina 1/ Mayhem 1
02. Mutaaattori / Mutator
03. Onkalo / Cavity
04. Pakoisvoima / Fugalforce
05. Louhi
06. Rahina II / Mayhem II
07. Tiimu / Halter
08. Keskeisvoima / Central force
09. Vahentaja / Diminisher
10. Rahina III / Mayhem III
11. Lautturi / Rafter
12. Painovoima / Gravity

CD2
01. Etaisyys / Distance
02. Konnat / Toads
03. Virtamuuntaja / Current-Transformer
04. Tasmania
05. Johto 5 / Cable 5
06. Valomuuntaja / Light-Transformer
07. Altistus / Exposure
08. Routa-olio / Groundfrost
09. Telemiittit / Telemites
10. Sykkiva / Throbbing
11. Prospekt Vernatskogo
12 Arktinen / Arctic

CD3
01. Viemarimaailma / Sewageworld
02. Kaytava / Corridor
03. Ilmenemismuoto / Appearanceform
04. Pakkasen Holvit / Arches of Frost
05. Selittamaton / Inexplicable
06. Ilma / Air
07. Koljan Uni / Sleep of Haddock
08. Linjat / Lines

CD4
01. Sateily / Radiation

This year PAN SONIC have already provided a sound installation for the Berlin Biennale and
performed at the Phillip Glass "Alter Ego" festival in Milan.

They will play the UK for the first time in nearly three years in April at The Triptych Festival
(Edinburgh / Aberdeen / Glasgow) and in May at "RE~TG" – a celebration of Industrial Music in the 21st Century" at Camber Sands as special guests of the curators, Throbbing Gristle.

In November they travel to China to perform at Beijing's 2nd electronic music festival and in early 2005 they will return to Japan and Australia, as well as attempt their first tour of
Africa.

They will also feature in David Toop's new book Haunted Weather and the accompanying double CD (out April) and in American digital film maker Edward Quist's much anticipated
1999 debut long-form DVD KUVAPUTKI (summer 2004)

http://www.mute.com

Great review, Ken.

I hope this thing doesn't cost a BUZZillion dollars.

has it laeked yet?

speaking of 4cd albums, when is an electronic artist going to do something along the lines of "zaireeka"?

-
A

Either way, even if it gets great, i'll be putting my copy up on ebay as soon as i'm done reviewing it, if anyone's interested...

so good

never realized how drastically the tone changes starting with disc three, this is the first time I've listened to it all in one sitting.

yikes, just looked this up on amazon and the cheapest used one is going for a mere $177.

just read that pan sonic have split

http://www.phinnweb.org/panasonic/news/

this makes me rather sad but there is supposedly a final album out shortly

"yikes, just looked this up on amazon and the cheapest used one is going for a mere $177."

zoinks! i like this album, but, um...

one just sold for 57 bucks on ebay. hmmmm....

if that was the only conceivable way to obtain it then $177 would be worth paying

i don't ever listen to it. but i do like it as an artifact. and i did enjoy listening to it, like, once or twice. i dig them. i liked the album that came out before it even more. still kinda mad at myself that i didn't buy that live album on vinyl when i saw it years ago. owning a live pan sonic album on vinyl just seems cool to me for some reason.

their albums have a sort of palpable analogue heaviness that makes you think they deserve to be artifacts rather than some flac files or w/e

kesto has had great longevity imo

Only albums I've found and heard so far are Aaltopiiri and the live one with Keiji Haino from last year. Love the former; the latter I haven't really latched onto yet, but that's how a lot of Haino stuff can go.

What should I check out next?

*A* was the album i really liked. from 1999.

one of those groups that definitely brings back lsd sense memories for me. pan sonic, so good i can taste them!

recently pulled out the Charlemagne Palestine collabo ...

one just sold for 57 bucks on ebay. hmmmm....

― scott seward, Tuesday, 23 February 2010 14:44 (7 hours ago)

LOL this was mine, I burned it.

Kesto is great because there are four whole discs in the box! and there are pictures on each! and each disc is pretty different from the others!

I should pull this out.

I willn't sell my copy of this album ever but I have to say I love Pan Sonic more when they're hardly barely there than when they're beating the shit out my head with dustbin lids.

Am regretting not buying this when it was wide in the open before, maybe I`ll take a look at some other places when I do my next CD scavenge.

forty something euros on discogs currently seems about right

just picked up this gem recently http://www.discogs.com/Kentolevi-Keimola-EP/master/75858

despite the sahko revival being (sadly) well and truly over - just that brutal post-industrial beat tool thing that mika vainio does best

then picked up a copy of the pansonic collabo with bruce gilbert from wire on mego, really minimal and rhythmic industrial music, no beats.

i wonder if jamal moss is aware that he got beaten to the IBM name by a couple of years

that kentolevi ep is highly recommended btw if you like the corroded dancehall styles of panasonic circa "urania" but even more pared down and singular. so sick

pulled this out the other day from cds i had in storage to try and undo the harm my ears have undergone by itunes claims circa 2005 that 160kbps is 'better than cd quality'. great album, i thought the ambient pieces were weak initially but i guess i just have more patience these days

Final album next month, Gravitoni.

http://blastfirstpetite.com/pansonic-gravitoni.html

11 pan finale

fuck

there'll be plenty from mika and probably ilpo vaisanen separately i'd guess

mika vainio playing live in london next weekend

Did anyone see anything confirming this Gravitoni album that's supposed to be out next month, other than that one page on blastfirstpetite.com?

http://blastfirstpetite.com/ now says: OUT NOW!

er... where the f can I order it then?

Out on June 7th, says Cargo Records. Preorder available. Also: SAMPLES (can't get the second one to play here)

http://www.cargorecords.co.uk/release/11803

Pansonic – Mika Vainio & Ilpo Vaisanen. All hail the unsmiling Finns. “After this Pansonic goes into deep freeze” says Vainio. In one of his more loquacious moments. Eleven new tracks of their trademark warm, deep, muscular sound that acts as personal trainer to your speaker cones. Gravitoni , their seventh son born as a duo since 1995. No live shows whatsoever are planned to celebrate their fifteen year run at the forefront of expanding the electronic music scene.(although ilpo would still like to play in africa some day soon).

Haha I'm amused by this Finnish rep for taciturnity, doesn't correlate with the evidence around here but w/e

Srlsly looking forward to this

wicked. can't wait. just got the recent Mika solo too but haven't had time to listen...

don't know about you guys but i want more Ø.

unlikely he'll ever revisit more conservative dance formulas but anything can happen.

the last track off his 'vandals' ep from last year was a sort of 4/4 electro thing

Voltos Bolt is on MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/blastfirstp

Woohoo! Gravitoni was in my mail box today! (ordered it from blastfirstpetite.com only last week)
Just skipped through it and I'd say the first half is quite noisy, the second half starts out quieter and gets harder progressively. But don't take my word for it, buy it yourself. :-)

It's already my favourite album of theirs, I think.

First post-Pan Sonic solo release: a Mika Vainio single on an Austrian label

http://derstandard.at/1271377655319/Austro-Finnische-Freundschaft
http://www.discogs.com/Mika-Vainio-Its-A-Muthang/release/2297633

Studio collaboration with Haino Keiji, recorded in 2007

http://www.blastfirstpetite.com/pansonic-haino-studio.html

(that one appears to have leaked, btw)

love the concrete ish penultimate track on gravitoni

Mika Vainio is kind of a hero of mine

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/264792/Mika+Vainio.jpg

Way better picture than "two guys in duffle coats standing in front of a modernist building". Badass tats!

Gravitoni is a terrorizing album. Best of 2010 so far. Still feel ill at times listening to it. Katodivaihe sounds much more fun in comparison, but not as good.

yeah gravitoni is great, probably my favourite so far this year

giving this a spin sight unseen

opening track is some groovy sociopathy

which one? kesto is probably the best album of the last decade

gravitoni

am liking this a lot, although the otherwise wonderful track 3 could stand to go on for 20 more minutes - I gather they've done their fair share of ultraextended composition so I guess to scratch that itch it's a question of trawling the archives (all of Kesto is on Spotify...)

holy mother of god, track 4 kicked in and now I realise why track 3 had to end

Way better picture than "two guys in duffle coats standing in front of a modernist building". Badass tats!

― MIA Deren Brown Sugar Ray Leonard Cohen Afterworld (admrl), Thursday, September 23, 2010 5:10 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark

he's incredibly stylish right? gotta admire the beauty of that combination. i like to think he wears that outfit every single day and owns a walk in wardrobe full of plain black tees, black levis, and doc marten shoes. extremely cool

what happens when it is very cold :(

this album seems to be getting fiercer with each subsequent track - it's accelerating into an exothermic vortex at almost exactly the right pace, and makes me to lament why I sleep on this kinda thing for so long - also it makes me cherish Spotify, for all its horror

http://www.fullcaffeine.com/foto/pansonic_02.jpg

yall h8ing on ilpo

speaking of ilpo, the hertsi record that got reissued on sahko this year is nuts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=di4cwV5ZR4c

gonna just throw a bone into the void in case any of you space-cadets are manning the spyglass

Has anyone heard "I, Thighpaulsandra" yet?

anyway gravitoni was eerie and dope

now commencing kesto which will be listened to over the snooker

Pakoisvoima = :D

HALFWAY THERE YOU GUYS

this is soooo good

kesto is pretty amazing. especially love the first two discs and the way they play with tweaking the degrees of harshness for similar structures. feel like I haven't managed to crack the third one with the long silences yet but I rarely put it on. and the last is a nice comedown.

still listen to this on the regular.

how much can i get for this set?

I got a bit over $50.

on ebay?

Me too. Yes, Ebay.

i got kind of a magnetic-fields-post-69-love-songs feel from 'katodivaihe' or however it's spelled, so it will be interesting to see if they shake it off on this last one.

That's a weird comparison to make

ha

<3 It's A Muthang

think in terms of magnitude and concept and it's not weird at all. since '69 love songs' merritt has just been making… records.

<3 corona

so damn heavy

i thought i had posted about this, but maybe it was on the metal thread.

'gravitoni' is great and i haven't been able to listen to it since cold weather and dark nights set in. i don't want to rip apart the fabric of reality and leave an empty hole behind if there's no hot air around to fill the void.

that's exactly when i start listening to pan sonic

and why

ok, puncturing the fabric as we speak, watch out

A much-needed brain colonic for this awful time of year. Thanks for the reminder...

gravitoni spring

> just read that pan sonic have split
> nakhchivan, Tuesday, 23 February 2010 14:39 (3 years ago)

new release imminent:
http://kvitnu.com/pan-sonic-oksastus-soon-on-kvitnu/

ah, ok, "Live album recorded in 2009 in Kyiv, Ukraine." which makes sense (kvitnu are based in kiev)

released: 20.02.2014

http://kvitnu.com/releases/kvitnu33/

I ordered from the label. We'll see how long this takes, as it's coming direct from the Ukranian postal system!

Nice cover art:

http://kvitnu.com/releases/

ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

such a beautiful and enrapturing recording

drinking lots of coffee on a preternaturally dark rainy spring afternoon and letting this proliferating noise envelop the place

does anyone have other recommendations from the kvitnu label

i like zavoloka's stuff, the lead track on Svitlo ep especially. and the Viter / Verdena lps. Plaster and Sturqen also (think emptyset)

some of the other bands like the loud white noise thing, which doesn't appeal to me.

(lots of samples on amazon.co.uk)

four threads for Kesto...

anyway, now available digitally:

http://boomkat.com/downloads/1019143-pan-sonic-kesto

(and other places)

this band was the best

now it's all just pizza and waves and whatever

man

instead of XKKKKXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXRRRRRRRRRRRRRXXXXXXXXXXXXKKKKKKKKKKXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

I really like Mika's Konstellaatio release this year.

that one is minimal even by mika's standards and it took a few listens to sink in. it's really pretty, I go back to it a lot now.

It certainly rewards more from return plays, the first track Otava feels like the imaginary soundtrack from Vonnegutt's unmade Cat's Cradle movie. I know that sounds like absolute bollocks, but that is how it sounds to me!

SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

http://m.culturebox.francetvinfo.fr/festivals/sonar-festival/mika-vainio-au-sonar-221889

http://www.blastfirstpetite.com/pansonic-atomin.html

the final pan sonic release, a soundtrack

unless a label has been holding on to another archived live release

^ this is good, they are always good, we were never good enough for them

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAIdMFKXvqI

RIP Mika Vainio:

http://www.rumba.fi/uutiset/suomalaisen-elektronisen-musiikin-pioneeri-mika-vainio-kuollut/

This is terrible news, I saw him play only a few weeks ago.

Oh no. Fuck.

Damm, RIP. Last saw him performing a couple of years ago as part of a trio and he made the nastiest noises with the least effort - very cool dude.

I saw Pan sonic (they may not even have changed the name yet) in 2000 or 2001, opening for Wire in New York. Two anonymous-looking dudes sitting behind a table loaded with what looked like homemade electronic junk, making these unearthly, building-rattling sounds. It was really amazing, and kind of opened my eyes in some ways as to what live music could be (I was still very much in a rock band/jazz group mindset in terms of what a show "should be").

Yeah, building-rattling is exactly right - saw Panasonic supporting Suicide in a pretty small London venue and distinctly remember going to the gents toilets during their set and finding all the cubicle doors vibrating quite violently on their hinges.

oh no! RIP :(

sad news

not the revive I was expecting tbh. :(

RIP and damn, only 53

:(

what! no no no no no - RIP :(

Yeah 53 is no age

what the hell

RIP

fuck

Jesus..

Man, that's a shock. Figured he would just keep on for decades. Never did see him or Pan Sonic live in the end, and now regret it.

In recent years I thought his Konstellaatio and Kilo albums were both so great, and still not sounding like much else.

RIP

Have listened to so much Ø stuff this year, I think that project was some kind of platonic ideal of minimal techno.

absolutely, agreed

Man

I was able to see him live once and was sad when he cancelled an appearance at a festival I was at a couple years later because I was really looking forward to seeing him again. Such an incredibly influential musician

Absolutely huge loss. :(

R.I.P.

Genuinely gutted.

terrible news

RIP

RIP. The first ever laptop-only performance I saw was him, Peter Rehberg and Christian Fennesz at the LMC experimental music festival in London, 1998 I think. All the crusty old jazz dudes walked out within about 5 minutes, it was great.

this is bullshit and rong

pan sonic rule forever

really devastated by this.

Have listened to so much Ø stuff this year, I think that project was some kind of platonic ideal of minimal techno.

indeed. i think he helped kill my love of techno as almost everything that came afterwards felt old and redundant in comparison, to my ears.

kuvio 4 eva

Such a shock. I've had Kulma (sides C and D) sitting on my turntable for the last 48 hours and disc 4 of Kesto was sat in the CD player overnight so that's a bit freaky. It's not like I listen to his work all the time but I had a binge this week.

RIP.

Reports coming in that he died accidentally while on holiday in France.

:-(

Simply gutted by this. All the Ø stuff is so great already, but Kesto was essential, formative for me. He had so much brilliant music in him still. We'll never get to know it. RIP.

I've been listening to 'Virta 1' on repeat. It's taken on an almost requiem-like quality:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZL1V06Er1E

53? Awful. RIP.

http://www.sashafrerejones.com/diary/2017/4/13/a-memory-of-mika-vainio

Why bother linking to that tripe?

ok.

oh come on, that story is great

it's a good story!

also I'm cracking up remembering the mixed reactions on ilm to autechre having russell haswell as an opener recently

Yeah, that is a good story, sorry Albert.

I've never really paid much attention to Russell Haswell but isn't he basically just a try-hard dickhead?

Bjork drops in on Mika in his Barcelona flat:
https://twitter.com/i/videos/853284310652141568

magical

That's beautiful.

What documentary or series is that from? Did Bjork do more of these?

These guys passed me by a little but RIP. What's the best record to start with?

The quadruple lp Kesto of the thread title is a good place to start imo, at least it was my gateway album to them.

Kesto is huge, yeah, and a lot of it is good. For something more compact, I actually find Gravitoni really enjoyable and inviting. A was the first thing I heard by them and it made me turn my head; I haven't listened to it in years: I wonder how it would hold up.

Pan Sonic live in NYC, 1998. Alan Vega joins in at the end. fantastic. https://soundcloud.com/djspaceysissick/panasonic-pan-sonic-w-alan-vega-live-at-coney-island-high-oct-30th-1998

I could really do with blasting out Kesto at ear-splitting volume right now, but I have a new neighbours and they are so charming and brought some cake around yesterday. I won't do it to them!

do it FOR them

sounds like a plan!

Gravity still rocks so hard, what a track!

I think my peak interest in these was back in '05 and I can't remember which other albums I liked best at the time. But I can remember one track that made me think if they ever made a movie about the Kursk submarine disaster - this would be the soundtrack.

i like pan sonic a lot but i prefer vainio's solo work as Ø

check out the compilation tulkinta, the albums metri and olento and then move on to the album oleva

man all I have is Tulkinta (which I love), gotta pick up some of those other ones

see also: Philus

RIP. Was lucky enough to see Pan Sonic twice ... or maybe only once, depending on your definition. The first time was just before they changed their name, the second time was a couple of years later but they walked off stage about five minutes into their set because the acoustics of the venue weren't to their liking. The promoter was pissed and had to refund everyone's money. AFAIK they never played again in Toronto after that.

man it felt like there'd just always be a steady stream of hq noisy techno coming out from vainio for the rest of my life. r.i.p. miss this dude a lot already :-/

fearless artist, much respect, RIP

Paul Smith on Mika: http://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2017/04/mika-vainio-rip

very good, thx

https://soundcloud.com/ninja-tune/solid-steel-radio-show-1252017-hour-2-panasonic-live-1996

Hey, nice

https://boilerroom.tv/microsite/sahko-the-movie/

Artfully shot on 16mm by Jimi Tenor in 1995, Sähkö The Movie - a title fans have given the film in the absence of any official one - is a suitably abstract portrayal of the singular label in its prime. Finnish artists featured include Sähkö co-founder Tommi Grönlund, Mono Junk, Hertsi, IFÖ, and, of course, Mika Vainio himself.

oh man, I forgot that they were going to be premiering that

apparently it was either shown or released very briefly years ago but it seems like a great, if sad, time to really bring it to prominence. I've heard it's pretty great.

https://editionsmego.bandcamp.com/album/net

Ilpo Väisänen returns to Editions Mego under the guise of I-LP-ON with an immense tribute to the outfit he played in alongside his friend and former creative partner Mika Vainio.

ÄÄNET takes inspiration from the life of PAN SONIC, the outfit they inhabited for over 2 decades. Recorded in Kuopio, Barcelona and Karttula, ÄÄNET is made up of a series of minatres that harness the many shadows this legendary act absorbed: Industrial, ambient, dub and club all figure into this edgy slow burning menace of a release. Featuring recordings made on the 2000 PAN SONIC world tour Väisänen has crafted a unique homage to the outfit which redefined experimental electronic music by embracing pulsing club aesthetics coupled with more abstract avant garde tendencies.

The seismic fingerprint left by PAN SONIC avoids dating and genre identification finding a new definition here both as a nod to a notorious past whilst laying the groundwork for reigniting something utterly contemporary. ÄÄNET is an essential release of Väisänen’s as it allows further expansion and broadening of the paths carved out from this resolutely unique form of scratchy and sublime electronic music.
credits

released November 9, 2018

just listening to it now, excellent.

it is!

I've been meaning to check these guys out for ages, now jumping in by listening to A for the first time. This is incredible, some of the most *future* music I've ever heard. It's glitchy and techno-y but nothing about it feels dated or tied specifically to the "glitch era." I'll tackle Kesto eventually, but can anyone give a rundown of the other stuff?

A is my favorite, Kesto is my 2nd favorite, not as big a fan of Kulma, the B EP is almost as good as A, and def check out Mika Vainio's solo work

I am also partial to the austere Vainio side projects Philus and (ought sign) whatever the ASCII code is for that

Ø

Kesto is basically "here's four different albums showing four different sides of our approach"