Circle (the Finnish band): S/D

I would say 30+ year-old mostly male vinyl collector nerds with tastes that lean towards metal and krautrock.

i don't think i know any tripsters irl

tripsters are hipsters with a psychedelic fetish.
Mostly an ILX in-joke.
ARE YOU A TRIPSTER?!?!?! OMG WTF LOL
WHO IS #1 TRIPSTER OF NOISE BOARD
http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=60&threadid=41

Jon's description is way more accurate and useful I would say.

i mean i only know of them apocryphally, i guess
tripsters hang out in groups, but jon's ppl are more familiar to me
can a person be a lone tripster?

Actually if I'm going to accurately describe the Circle fans I've spoken with irl, I'd have to add the descriptor "record store employee" because they are the only people I've actually talked about the band with.

The Circle fans I know are dudes in psych bands.

Have met a few metalheads and some noise type people at Circle gigs.

I'd have to add the descriptor "record store employee" because they are the only people I've actually talked about the band with.

mwahahahahaa krakow

Hey Liam no pressure, just clarifying: you are going to continue this awesome rundown with the 00s Circle albums, correct?

I would say 30+ year-old mostly male vinyl collector nerds with tastes that lean towards metal and krautrock.

bullseye.

loooving the rundown, liam! especially interested in the side projects since I've only dabbled here and there. was completely unfamiliar with Rättö Ja Lehtisalo for example.

is there a standout in the ektroverde catalog?

Guilty as charged on all counts.

Record shop employee, 30 years old, male, record collector nerd, noise dude, tastes leaning towards metal & krautrock...

only thing im not is record store employee. krakow can be my proxy though

Yeah I fall into all those categories too, except record store employee. Although I did spend 2 years on the waiting list to work at one back in college.

I would say 30+ year-old mostly male vinyl collector nerds with tastes that lean towards metal and krautrock.
yes no sorta yes
former record store employee

I will continue soon, and in depth. I need to do some listening and make some notes. I'm planning to describe them all including the more limited release live LPs and 7"s. Listening to Taantumus now and having a ball. Guillotine and Tulikoira are my favorites so expect a torrential downpour of hyperbole and hopefully infectious enthusiasm.

There is a standout Ektroverde, being Ukkosalalamma which should also be the easiest to track down as it was the last one. It's something of a coda to the whole Ektroverde experiment. Thanks for the interest everyone, glad to be of service.

Thanks for this! Pharaoh Overlord is the only side project I've delved into so far, my list just keeps on growing!

This has led to my discovery of tons of Finnish underground shit on Spotify, much thanks.

serious qn: can someone still be a tripster if he doesnt collect (or even own any) vinyl?

Back to Circle albums after an extended tour through the side projects...

Taantumus - This is probably the best Circle album to start with, all the songs are very strong and concise. For any other band this would be the ultimate album, the career high. For Circle it's just another chapter in an ongoing saga of excellence. Taantumus looks back to the shorter songs on Meronia while retaining the newly found maturity and freedom achieved with Prospekt. Jussi even sings in the old style on a few tracks. The production is polished and crisp, almost sounding like utopian pop music from hundreds of years in the future or something. This is a colorful album, each tune conjures up a different and distinct sound world. This is defitely their most energetic and uptempo album. It's a heck of a lot of fun. Jyrki Laiho and Teemu Elo especially shine here, it is very much a guitar album. This is also Janne Peltomaki's finest hour on drums; every song is grounded by a distinct and energetic syncopated drum rhythm played with absolute assurance. Leppanen is absent on this album (and Alotus and Raunio) and Ratto only appears as a vocalist on a few of the more epic tracks. A really excellent work, not a single song that even remotely resembles a dud. This is the album where they sever once and for all the ties to their past. This is a farewell love letter to the Circle of the 90s.

Raunio (live) - The second live album documents a Finnish tour around the time of Taantumus. It's compiled from several shows and the sound quality varies. The song here called Alotus (confusingly titled Työläisten Laulu on the actual album Alotus!) was my first Circle song and I was hooked instantly. Raunio sees them in full on post rock mode with the big crescendos and longish songs. This is the first album with Ratto as a full time participant and it's clear that he brings a lot to the table with his theatrics. It's a good enough album, but it's not one I'm particularly enthusiastic about mostly due to the fact that they have a fill in drummer and while he's not bad or anything, he lacks that certain essential spark of personality which Peltomaki and Leppanen add to the music.

Alotus - This is the swan song of the core Circle lineup that solidified with Andexelt, after this Jyrki Laiho and Janne Peltomaki will leave and start their own groups and Teemu Elo will stick around for only one more album. It's the first album where Ratto is fully integrated and essential. Alotus sees the band in a more trancey mood than we've experienced up to this point, very meditative and zen. All the songs approach or exceed the ten minute mark except for a short little breather in the middle of the disc. Everything is stripped down to bare essentials, almost as much as Pharoah Overlord, and slow tempos rule the day. The song called Alotus is one of their best compositions. It's almost like jazz in form. It starts with a theme/melody, followed by a long experimental free improv section anchored by a bass/drum groove (with Ratto playing skittery drums, dancing around Peltomaki's ostinato) and then a breakdown into a rubato section and finally a return to the theme. What singing there is on this cd is also very funny, more than usual! A lesser album, but an important step if only for this new style of composition signified by the song Alotus which will be used to great effect live and especially on the album Tulikoira...

Peel Session - This isn't a real album, but it can be found on the internet fairly easy. If anyone has trouble finding it, I'll upload it to whatever site you guys use now (sendspace still?). It needs to be heard! The quality of the sound is excellent. This is Leppanen and Westerlund's debut recording with Circle (I think?) There's also a second drummer who I think is from the band Magyar Posse and his contribution to this album's worth of material makes it almost as propulsive as Prospekt! The version of Alotus here in particular is jaw dropping, it practically levitates. I've had my fingers crossed for years that this will get a real release, it's very strong Circle, but so far no luck. There are 4 songs, all around twenty minutes each! All are extended tripouts, jam packed with color and sonic detail. The new blood in the band really brings things to life in spectacular fashion. Raunio pales in comparison to this!! Too cool to go unmentioned.

Sunrise - NWOFHM! One of the most astonishing (and certainly most unexpected) albums in the catalog. With the older members jumping ship and the addition of the Pharoah Overlord guys we almost have a completely new lineup, a lineup which has stayed consistent ever since. It's an all-star lineup, too, all the members have impressive credentials, leading or prominently contributing to many bands which are also worth exploring. Circle is now a focused and furious heavy metal machine! Well, sorta. This album seems to have been one of their most successful, getting a lot of press and accolades. Sunrise explores not just metal riffs and Iron Maiden type vocal theatrics, but also the more whimsical and enchanted side of the band as evidenced by the RjL albums. This is Ratto's album really, his ingenius vocalisations puts this one completely over the top. For my money, the rainbow skull artwork fits perfectly. The music is almost overwhelmingly ecclectic. Every song is completely unique. Special mention goes to the epic opener Nopeskunigas which features an insistent downbeat, killer distorted riffing, manic singing, swirling cosmic synths and even a prominent guitar solo! It builds and builds until it's all white noise and synth wash and then stops on a dime. Miraculous. The second song is the complete opposite, a floating elvish acoustic guitar excursion with delightful vocalisations... it's clear that from here on out the only thing we can expect from Circle is the unexpected. Ratto lays off the singing for the second (weaker) half of the disc and the intsruments and compositions get more and more demented and confusing. The final song is sort of a dud, it's too long even for them and nothing interesting really happens, but you barely notice because the rest of the album is so wild! This disc is also noteable for having very strange production, the bass and kick drum are very subdued and all the other instruments have a sort of magical sheen. This is a crucial piece of the Circle puzzle.

What groups are you digging up with Spotify, Tripster?

Definitely check out Markku Peltola if he's there! He's the main actor in Kaurismaki's film Man Without A Past and his music is very much in the Circle mode, except more organic maybe with lots of plucked classical guitars, violins and strange percussion. Sort of like an acoustic instrumental Circle combined with Ennio Morricone!!! Some of my favorite albums ever, both on the Ektro label. His old band Motelli Skronkle is almost as good, too.

Mostly Fonal stuff. I will look for Markku, I love that film.

and he's there!

whoa that sounds so good! going to look him up prontito.

liam, your writing is truly noteworthy, btw -- clear, informative, descriptive, and enthusiastic.

I think I am going to start calling them "sir-clay" just to watch people react with exasperation.

yes!

thanks again, liam. loving this. circle peel session - who knew? (well, not me at least.)

Which members of circle were in Tivol? i love them. Really loving the nightsatan spin off

I've never heard Tivol, will have to check them out, any band compared to Amon Duul is a band I want to hear. From looking at the discogs site it doesn't look like they're actually related to Circle. Nightsatan is pretty fun, I think the only connection there is that it's at least one member of Steel Mammoth and mastered by Jussi. I only have the 7" and of course it's impossible to say for sure who's who with a lot of the NWOFHM stuff because of the pseudonyms!

Thanks for the kind words Art Arfons.

the nightsatan vinyl is out now on svart i think. cd was last year. i need to pick up the vinyl.. Tivol really are awesome.

Only two today, but two good ones. I decided I needed to explore Guillotine in depth...

Elcric 7"- The title is Circle spelled backwards and the two songs here are totally out of this world awesome. As far as I know this was recorded along with Guillotine and Vesiliirto in one massive studio session. Both songs showcase the more relentless and motorik side of Circle and both are heaped in distortion and fuzz guitars. Both have riffs to die for, miniature crescendos and all sorts of weird slowed-down sounds buried way back in the mix. Bizarre sparse vocalese, two lean mean rocking psyche machines. Turns out the mature Circle is a killer singles band. Who would've thought?

Guillotine - With Guillotine, Circle finally and shamelessly embraces the weirdness they've only flirted with up until now. The concept of songs becomes a little less important for the next few albums... songs are now vehicles for exploration, the starting point, the launch pad. The edges blur, overlap, jumble. Every note sounds carefully considered and organic. This is my favorite album of theirs, period. I also consider this to be the ultimate krautrock album, they've learned their lessons well and bettered their elders in every way. It's an epic journey from lightest light to darkest dark and back again. The first song gets things off to a perfect start, a song that only Circle could've made. Chiming fender rhodes, lightly fuzzed and acoustic guitars, killer echo effects, tasty and dare I say jazzy motorik drumming topped by Ratto's most effervescent and effective elf vocals to date. The song builds to an amazing climax with a long tambourine roll and a big epic riff from Westerlund before gently cascading back down to the lightly churning propulsive ostinatos we started with. Amazing song, another career high!

In fact there are only three real songs on this album... the rest is jumbled confusion. The next few songs are acoustic workouts of the Amon Duul I variety, sans actual riffs for maybe the first time ever in Circle's history. These three songs are lo fi, too, another first and quite obviously a deliberate aesthetic choice. Hazy and demented. The first weird one, song number two, is all tangled acoustic guitars, sometimes accompanied by insistent hand drums that sound like they're on the verge of falling apart and all sorts of bizzarre, whispering, muttering and mewling vocals. Really way too cool, seriously. The third song features an ancient sounding melody, seemingly older than time itself and backed by demented half speed laughing!! Then a pulsing arpeggiated synthesizer appears, like some kind of aliens have arrived in this strange caveman world Circle has conjured up. The fourth song is more twisted acoustic guitars, an epic laid back guitar solo backed by even stranger vocal acrobatics - hissing and spluttering.

Then the second real song appears, another career highlight, called Teraskylpy. A twelve minute extended journey through the dark side. A lurching and demented ostinato riff played on both bass and guitar stomps through an underground cavern, pinned down by Leppanen at his most insistent and consistent, surrounded by cavemen banging together bones and rattling teeth. More primitive vocals are buried in the mix, giving the impression of primordial peoples dancing around some black magic fire pit. This is a place where language has yet to be invented... The song builds and builds, getting more distorted and wild, but the riff holds everything together. It breaks down, the riff continues but the cavemen chill out a little with the clattering and Jussi intones a bunch of strange otherworldly doo-wop in a gravelly near whispered voice. The riff continues on, unstoppable. We build up again, the dancing continues, growing more frenzied with every pass. Way back in the mix, the alien synths reappear, strobing and beaming the song up, tearing apart the very sound molecules themselves. Finally a big drum fill brings the song to a close and the synths are left with the vocals to exist in this new dimension...

...a new dimension where everything is wrong, causality is meaningless, time is suspended, rules are rewritten. Now we have a number of songs that start weird and proceed to get even stranger before gradually winding down. Just about every weird sound you can think of, and a few more you can't think of, is thrown into the stew. A veriteable cauldron full of murky madness. Slowed down tv news broadcasts and laughing are the most memoreable sound in this long stretch of album; in fact everything is slowed down - synth drones, voices, voices, voices, bent guitar notes, squeals, cymbal hits, tip tapping drums, clattering drums, half speed bass guitar that sounds almost like a tuba! This whole part of the album is extremely hard to grasp and extraordinarily bizarre. Eventually it slows down to a crawl, until it's almost unbeareable...

...and then the bubble bursts and we're back to the chiming fender rhodes motorik-style krautrock world the album started out with! The third, and very long, proper song on the album is two alternated bass notes and lovely bubbling electric piano melodies over a patented Leppanen minimalist march time drum rhythm. They cruise along, taking their time, just existing and enjoying this hard-earned and quite wonderful green-white-blue sound world. Eventually Ratto starts intoning what is apparently a long story in Finnish. Since I don't understand Finnish, I just bathe in the strange and sublime sound of his voice and enjoy the way it floats above the airy music. The song doesn't really go anywhere although it does in fact keep building in intensity the whole time until the end. They've mastered the art of staying still yet always changing.

A final bizarre song features Westerlund muttering strange broken english over top of an atmospheric plink plonk synth chord progression, a strangely fitting coda. In closing, this album is insane and amazing. A major statement. It's also difficult but extremely rewarding. When I had a conversation with Leppanen in 2007 we talked about our favorite Circle albums (yes I'm a nerd! his favorite was Miljard!) and I told him Guillotine was 'it' for me. He was really surprised; he told me no one ever says that! So my tastes might not line up with the average listener, even the average weirdo Circle fan, but I hope everyone interested in the band will give this one a chance. Magic stuff.

That single is so good. Feeling very regretful over not catching them on their last couple of trips to the states.

A twelve minute extended journey through the dark side. A lurching and demented ostinato riff played on both bass and guitar stomps through an underground cavern, pinned down by Leppanen at his most insistent and consistent, surrounded by cavemen banging together bones and rattling teeth. More primitive vocals are buried in the mix, giving the impression of primordial peoples dancing around some black magic fire pit. This is a place where language has yet to be invented...

underground primordial black magic fire pit cave dancing -- i can't wait to hear this!! grooveshark appears to only have various tracks from guillotine, but fortunately this is one of them. i don't know how else i would be able to hear it anyway, so i guess i'm thankful for scraps.
lurching demented scraps.

http://www.nrgm.fi/wp-content/themes/nrgm/icache/g/i/f/giffaa114circle2gif-660x700-non.gif

Actually pilfered from an "up-the-arse" thread on another board.

yikes!

was that board dffd?

The trio of standout studio albums (guillotine, forest and tulikoira) are all deserving of the full treatment in my mind and I can't resist looking at them in depth. I'm going to go back to more capsule reviews for all the others (except for maybe the Rautatie/Infektio knockout combo!), so please bear with me.

Forest - This was an album that was truly astonishing to me the first time I heard it. They are still in neato black magic caveman krautrock mode, only now they're approaching it from a more minimalist and highly rhythmic angle. Forest is a very apt title; this is a very dark album, sinister sounding and mellow. Aquarius records described it as a combination of Goblin and Can and that's not innaccurate. John Carpenter is a good reference point, too. There are very funny instructions printed on the actual cd: Play Loud! Synthesizers (specifically the Roland Juno 60, I think) appear as the prominent instrument for the first time, coupled with a heavy emphasis on unusual percussion. Drumset is absent, the percussion is performed with hand drums, rattles and shakers. Each of the four songs has a distinct flavor and unique compositional approach. The singing is perhaps the most surprising of all, Westerlund takes the lead for the entirety of the disc, with Jussi contributing some far away painful-sounding howling, coughing, throat clearing and other weirdness here and there. Ratto keeps entirely quiet! Westerlund sort of has a bluesy and massively cool laid back broken-english drawl here, with the words spaced out and freely disregarding and trampling over the prominent instrument rhythms like they don't even exist, to very cool effect. I don't think there is any bass on the whole album, Westerlund and Jussi seem to both be playing acoustic guitars.

The first tune is one of the more unique and atmospheric songs they've done. It's so insanely cool sounding. It's built around a twisted drum rhythm from Leppanen and a badass synth melody that is extremely hard to grasp (I figured it out once, but I forget what it is now and can't be bothered to count, I think they subtract a beat every other bar so it's all off center sounding) The rest of the band seems to all be playing percussion together in a straight 2/4, syncopating their beats and creating a tapestry that compounds and cushions the wacky melodic rhythms on top. Eventually Westerlund starts his demented broken english vocalising and then synth washes begin to overtake everything.

The second song is built around a very cool sounding acoustic guitar ostinato, backed by more twisted rhythm stuff; a strange sounding bass drum, hand drums and random percussion hits that sound almost like someone hitting a dinner plate with a metal spoon or something. Eventually a maze of delayed synthesizer arpeggiators overtakes the acoustic guitar, washing over everything and giving the track a very sci-fi feel that contrasts nicely with the overall acoustic vibe. More cool singing, "lookout..."

The third tune is the only one that sounds like a normal song, and a bluesy back porch one at that! The back porch is built into an evil alien space ship fueled by some seriously weird sounding synth work, but still... there are two sections to this one, in 3/4, a low key acoustic guitar riff and more weirdo mumble singing and then the acoustic guitars shift to a more insistent rhythm punctuated by backwards synth melodies and distant sequencer rhythms. Janne is singing all sorts of strange stuff with lyrics like "keep the booze, and the chemicals, too". This is a less ambitious song compared to the others, but it's a nice change of pace.

The fourth tune, Jaljet, is another monumental achievement, and another high point in the ouvre. This is a 17 minute long journey through supremely hypnotic rhythms that sound almost like gamelan! This one is overwhelmingly cool. This is the only song on the disc where they all play their instruments like normal, more or less. All the sounds are blended together into one writhing, pulsating, living mass of shimmering hypno-bliss. I honestly can't even tell what the hell is going on here for the most part, it's so well blended. They just coast along, effortlessly, sculpting the sounds, concentrating on the smallest of details. I think there is a tongue drum ostinato that holds it all together. Leppanen is playing the raddest sounding rim shots ever, and about halfway starts in with some ride cymbals. Jussi and Westerlund are playing insistent acoustic guitar rhythms. Ratto is playing a plink plonk synth ostinato and also wonderfully sporadic melodies that sound very futuristic and utopian. Every now and then Westerlund plays some slippery and twangy two or three note melodic guitar lines and/or sings. Way in the back are what sounds like heavily reverbed burping sounds and grunts (not to mention more slowed down laughing!) Out of this world.

Seek this out, post-haste, all ye fellow connisseurs of the weird, wild and wonderful!

guillotine and forest are such a strong (but creepy and wild) combo. love them.

forest was the first circle lp I ever listened to. bought it after a tremendous show in full NFOFHM mode and was deeply perplexed but the contrast at first.

*uh, NWOFHM

it appears that the last time they were in my neck of the woods it was 2007, so i guess i don't feel too bad for missing that. not like it was 4 months ago or something.

This is a good thing you're doing, Liam. This stuff doesn't lend itself to easy description.
First Circle I heard was Raunio and it's still something of a sentimental favorite but I haven't listened to it in ages. Interesting to know they had a guest on drums. Forest is in my listening queue. November seems like the perfect month for it.

Yeah, didn't think of that, Forest is pretty much perfect Halloween music.

Alan N, I can't even begin to imagine what it'd be like to see them and then hear Forest as your first album! The live show is a completely different experience, with completely different goals, I'm planning on discussing that when I spend some time with the live LPs. I imagine a lot of people had your experience. The 2007 show I saw was really well attended, as many people as you'd see at a Mogwai show and considerably more than you'd see at, say, an Acid Mother Temple show. I still have no idea where all those people came from.

yeah, I've grown to really love forest but I was initially baffled!

Circle/Acid Mothers Temple split 7" - This one is pretty new to me. It's from the Sunrise lineup of the band, with Teemu Elo. It gets off to a very promising start with a very low key slow burn motorik section with lots of tasty rimshots from Leppanen and Ratto mumble ranting with his scary old man vampire voice. Then a bunch of exceedingly strange guitar stuff just suddenly appears and the song goes in a completely different and unexpected direction. The drums go to the bottom of the mix and we're assaulted with waves of siren like guitar wailing doing battle with noodly fuzz guitar doodles. In the background vocal howls gradually gain prominence until everything just stops on a dime and all we're left with is the strange singing. Overall it's kind of whatever song, unfortunately. The AMT side is pretty ridiculous, even for them, but not especially noteable. Wall to wall trip out, standard stuff for them. The song title (tombstone phantom drifter) is probably the best thing about it!

Tulikoira - Circle with big time studio production! Pro tools and all! Well, I don't think there's autotune... but they use every other trick in the book. This is a tremendous album, a metal-hippy-techno-occult ritual. The sound quality and production values on this disc are top notch, Circle really outdid themselves this time. They took all the fancy tricks available and bent them to their own strange and ecclectic will. This is another disc that was just astonishing to me the first time I heard it. It's another album where they approach each song with a different and very specific compositional agenda. The dazzling percussionist Janni Tuomi (who plays with them live quite a bit) is credited as a full member on this disc. He contributes all sorts of colorful clattering percussion stuff, adding a lot of sonic interest and texture. His performance is very much appreciated by this listener. If I remember correctly, this was the first album to feature the New Wave Of Finnish Heavy Metal tag (in gigantic letters, in fact) and it has yet to be, and probably never will be, surpassed. It doesn't actually have much to do with metal... and that's probably the whole point. It's Circle dressed up in metal clothing (specifically spikes and studs as evidenced by the live show!) This whole album is like one epic high point in the catalog! There aren't enough superlatives in the world for Tulikoira.

The first song starts with an occult ritual, effected babbling sounds bathed in reverb, slowed down chanting, strange chiming sounds, controlled guitar feedback, incredibly ominous synth drones and deep, distant, drum thuds that sound like they come from the depths of hell. Then the rather nice sounding wave of feedback builds up and they burst into a thematic up and down melodic bass riff punctuated by choked cymbal crashes which is repeated eight times. Then a big drum roll and our heroes explode into an astonishing hypno-metal deep space part. This section consists of a freaking blast beat (!) at hyper speed along with furious riffing backed by epic synth strings! They break down again to more of the occult ritual stuff with a little more drums this time, very dramatic! Another big drum fill, back to the theme and blast off! The grindcore drums come back, only now Mika is singing like a galactic overlord, sadly contemplating the fate of the universe. The guitar riff is now augmented with chiming synth melodies and the sheer power of the sound is almost overwhelming. Finally they break down once more to a brief feedback coda and the song ends. It's a very long song, but it goes by quick. A tremendous "tune" and some of the only music I've ever heard that could be described as genuinely cinematic.

The second song, Tulilintu, is an actual metal song!! Sounds very much like Iron Maiden or Judas Priest on the surface, although it's naturally heavy metal from another galaxy and filtered through dimension Circle. Ratto's vocals here are double tracked, each layer with a different strange effect, borderline shrieked and overall super cool and unique sounding. The song has a KILLER breakdown guitar solo section that sounds like glittering chrome and laser beam powered hot rods drag racing through outer space (I have very vivid visuals like that when I hear this one on certain substances!). A short and furious song that gets played live a lot, fittingly.

The third track is the only song here that works like a normal Circle song, built on an infinitely repeating bass riff. It has to be one of the most deviously simple, clever and badass riffs ever conceived by man. It's a common 3+3+2, easy enough, but turned around so it's backwards, 2+3+3. So cool. Of course the riff is just the beginning... This is one of my favorite Circle tunes. So many amazing weird synth sounds, crazy cool tape echo effects, perfect mechanical precision drumming, a bass tone to die for. Bizarre percussion plays a prominent role here. Ratto's singing is like a lifeless magical intonation from a zombie wizard, performed inside a neon pentagram drawn with blacklight paint in the middle of a graveyard in the dead of night, complete with wheezing. The whole tune is strobed by alien synthesizer tractor beams, lifting us up, up, up. Strobed is the word. There is a stunning breakdown about halfway, and when the riff comes back the UFO's Ratto has summoned appear in the sky and reality melts down enitirely except for the relentless riffage from Lehtisalo and Leppanen. Then, just when you think it can't get any better, Ratto plays a wonderful sci-fi melody on the synth that elevates the track to a whole other level of awesome. The song comes to a stop and we launch into the fourth and final song.

This one is a true show stopper and is also a regular feature of the live set. This is a tune like the song Alotus, a theme, breakdown to rhythmic improvisation and rubato and then back to the theme. The live version is simplified, but they elaborate on the theme much more in this studio version. All sorts of neat stuff happens in this more elaborated version of the theme, strange "hey, hey, hey my nameo" vocals from Jussi, cool insistent chiming synth repetitions and lots of heavy metal riffage. Then there is a hilarious looney-tunes sounding fake orchestra melody (!!!) that leads into the metal riff theme proper and we reach the fully improvised section and things get truly confusing. The riffs vanish, forgotten, replaced by synths and sequencers and clean guitars. Imagine the Grateful Dead... making Techno. Yes, that confusing. This song is truly and righteously twisted. Also, like the song Alotus, this very long stretch of album sees Ratto playing skittering drums around Lepannen's forward motion rhythms (might be Tuomi on the album, impossible to say!) I've never been able to grasp the sequence of events in this song, everything blends together, shifts, morphs, parts bleed into each other, drums collapse, wind down, start up again. Sometimes they're going forwards, sometimes they're just hanging out, sometimes they disappear entirely. There are pulsing sequencers driving synths that oscillate endlessly, coming and going randomly. Guitars are everywhere, wrapping around each other, noodling and arpeggiating. Everything is draped in a cloud of percussion and sonic wizardry. In the middle, hard to say exactly where, there is a part where the haze clears and Ratto simultaneously plays and sings a melody that is almost tender and quite moving. Jussi's bass is in the higher register, sometimes playing melodic riffs and sometimes improvised noodling. When you least expect it, after about twenty minutes of confusion and madness, there is a big drum role into the metal riff theme which repeats eight times and then the song ends! Fantastic!

i'm starting to think of this band as a space to occupy rather than something i am listening to
every time i listen to them i lose track of time and it's more like being somewhere than hearing something
not sure if that makes sense but whatever

That's how I feel too, it especially becomes apparent if you load up a whole lot of their stuff, particularly the live things, into a playlist and put it on random.

oh yeah another side project is Krypt Axeripper

Who sound pretty much like Steel Mammoth which is jussi again

and here's some others http://www.metal-archives.com/artists/Jussi_Lehtisalo/65540

I'm not into Steel Mammoth at all, their sound wore thin really fast for me. Krypt Axeripper is pretty funny. I totally flip over the Full Contact label NWOFHM vinyl-only things: Traktor Pulling, Motorspandex, Arkhamin Kirvasto and Mercedes Hell. Completely off the charts.

i loved the steel mammoth. not heard Traktor Pulling, Motorspandex, Arkhamin Kirvasto and Mercedes Hell so im going to have to d/l some!