Circle (the Finnish band): S/D

i've had trouble with soundway releases arriving within weeks of their release date, and i've often wished i had just gone to dusty groove to buy stuff, but in general i haven't had trouble buying from other labels overseas. i think i'm going to buy these for myself as a pre-winter gift -- thanks for the heads up.

Shipping from Ektro is just €1 per order for anything but LPs, which is a fantastic deal!

The LP shipping prices are listed here: http://ektrorecords.com/shop/shipping.php and I think are reasonable given how expensive posting LP packages overseas is (I assume it is similar in Finland to the UK).

Their service is really second to none. I don't think that I've ever had an order take longer than a day to be processed, with regular email updates on progress from them, and things arrive in less than a week, often beating stuff ordered from within the UK for me. Stuff is really well packaged too.

I've ended up ordering something every few months at least for the past few years and can safely say that Ektro is truly great for the mailorder.

And no, they don't pay me to wax lyrical about them, I just think that they should get their positive dues!

Krakow is right, Ektro is very, very good. CD's are quite cheap for shipping, but LPs are very expensive. Everything always comes pristine although US wise it usually takes two weeks en route after Jussi drops it off at the post office. I always order everything straight from him, it's worth it. But I'm a freak for this stuff...

My friend got an LP recently and it was bent in transit and Jussi sent him another copy the next time he did an order. He also threw in a free Circle Noiduttu cassette! Jussi is truly a good dude, he cares about this stuff as much as we do! Another good (amazing!) thing Jussi did: same friend was asking me a few years ago how he could find some of the rarer Circle albums. I suggested he just ask Jussi. He sent off an email and Jussi said he'd look around... a few months later he got an email, Jussi had been in a used cd store and found copies of Surface and Fraten!! They set up a trade (Jussi wanted Grateful Dead Dick's Picks!!! Ha ha!) Then like a year and a half later Jussi emailed him again randomly, he'd found a copy of Zopalki! This was like six or seven years ago, before the Ektro webstore, but still... amazing guy!

Thats awesome, think I'll be placing an order tonight!

Taantumus on 2xLP with 3 bonus tracks and Circle featuring Verde 'Tower' (previously a CD on Last Visible Dog) on LP are now on pre-order from Ektro.

Taantumus has black and brown vinyl variants.

oh, nice.

'tower' is a pretty underrated record imo. that thing is gorgeous, like they're channeling terry riley.

Yeah, I like that one a lot! Too bad I'm broke.

Tower is indeed killer. Terry Riley + In A Silent Way!

i lost several hours to this band yesterday!
can't wait to hear Tower -- terry riley + in a silent way 0_0 yes pls

Wow, Tower is great. Not at all what I expect from Circle; great chillout music.

Next you might want to check out Miljard, which is so chilled it's borderline ambient, kind of like frozen notes floating in an isolation chamber that is set up in the middle of Antarctica. Complete with a blizzard swirling in the distance, far away across the tundra.

this thread was one of the big ones that I had missed during our sandbox times...

^^^

Just got a package in the mail yesterday from aquarius with the Meronia, Prospekt, and Soundcheck reissues.

I started a thread on the sandbox because I missed this one, but it didn't really go anywhere iirc
No place like home.

that was a really good thread LL; I was just talking more about for reference purposes, as in having access to Liam's rundowns again.

I've saved it to my hard drive now though so it should be all good...

Riot Season just got hold of a small batch of the 'Empire' LP that they put out back in 2004. It's available from them here for £15 + shipping: http://riotseason.bigcartel.com/product/circle-empire-vinyl-lp

It's generally out-of-print and not readily available, so this is a good thing if you're missing that one.

Hey all, nice to be back! Ahhh, so what was in the sandbox thread? I missed it!

In case anyone is on the fence about any of the newer vinyl releases I would like to take this opportunity to say that PO Horn is crazy awesome and I've been listening to it everyday for like a month straight. High energy rock and roll mayhem! The Circle Maxim LP is also exceptional if you like the freakier and more free form side of the group. Leppanen is absent and Janne Tuomi just does his thing to great effect.

Anyway, I want to blitz through what we have left, which is still quite a bit naturally so it will still take some time. Going to mix the RjL and PO stuff in with the rest now since they all start to blend together as time goes by anyway.

Earthworm - this was a real curveball! Recorded at the same time as Tulikoira but with vocals and guitar solos grafted on in LA by a guy named Bruce Duff who was in a strange metal band called Jesters of Destiny that Jussi is a BIG fan of. I say "grafted" on because they totally don't mix with the music at all! Later releases (Hollywood and Out of Darkness) feature a much more integrated performance from Duff but on this one he just sounds awkward, like he doesn't really understand Circle's modus operandi yet. But that's okay, really, it makes for an interesting little EP! Bruce spits up about a million lyrics on top and kinda misses the point of it all. He also plays what sounds like chromatic guitar solos that have nothing to do with the key the band is in so that's a little strange although it mostly works out. Over time I've grown to like this EP for what it is but it was a little disappointing coming after Tulikoira!!! The first song, Earthworm, is one of Circle's best live songs with an absolutely insane uptempo syncopated drum part from Leppanen and a killer bizarre guitar riff with the accents all reversed. The Circle website currently has a streaming live version of this song that is about 18 minutes of intergalactic meltdown and shouldn't be missed.

Arkades - A great live document from the 2005 USA tour. Recorded at WFMU radio station in NJ with very good sound. This is 2 long tunes that showcase the improvised slow burn atmospheric side of the band with a lot of twangy subdued guitar noodling and an emphasis on electronics, synths and fender rhodes sounds. The artwork has a kind of wild west theme that fits the soundscapes conjured therein. The vinyl version came first and then a few years later we got an awesome 2xcd version with a bonus disc of a second live set also from 2005. This 2nd disc is quite worthy! One can only wonder how much of this quality stuff is locked away in the Ektro vaults! Features 3 long krautrocky songs, one of which is almost like techno with synth arpeggiaor, delay guitar and with Leppanen doing a kind of drum strip tease with blazing fast hi hat work. More please!

Pharaoh Överlord - IV - Note the umlauts! This is a different band! Well sorta. Technically. There's an interview with Jussi somewhere in which he stated that they now have 2 different identities, namely the one with the umlauts is heavy metal and the PO without, uh, isn't! The umlaut PO has a new guitar guy, a genuine 80s style metal dude named Jussi Kangas who is killer and unlike Mr. Duff on Earthworm, he is integrated perfectly. Kangas also sings a bit on most of the songs and approaches each one from a different angle/style and I really appreciate the variety. I LOVE this album. It's like chilled out metal, an overdose of layered riffage and with Leppanen just grooving along with light tom tom work and rimshots galore. Jussi plays some of his simplest and devastatingly effective bass ever. All the songs are extended workouts with a plethora of carefully arranged tripped out sounds and effects. Oh, and it's fucking funny! In the song Ridin we get a gnarly motorcycle revving up sample and the song See Me Evil sees the band playing in a huge arena complete with cheering audience and flashbulbs. A real trip. There's even a really great legato metal guitar solo that takes you on a little adventure. Insanely recommended assuming you have a sense of humor (it's their most cartoony album for sure!!!)

Tyrant - A live pristine sounding radio recording similar to Arkades except perhaps scarier sounding with three 15 minute long excursions, two of which are pretty dark and skittery and the third is an epic thematic type thing that is actually in a major key I think! They really indulge in the dissonance and the tortured vocalisations here. Also a lot of burbling synth arpeggios. The first song is pretty impressive with, believe it or not, a chilled out blast beat from Leppanen where he pushes himself to the limits of endurance and delivers the goods admirably. This one is less memorable than all the other improvised live albums from this time period but you still probably don't want to miss it if you like this side of the band.

Pharaoh Overlord - Live in Suomi Finland - Yeah baby! This is the normal version of PO. It's a live album from 2006 and they are mostly playing the old standards from the albums I and II. We have some intriguing new additions to the sound that make this one absolutely essential... namely the two guitar playing brothers (Julius and Pekka Jaaskelainen) from Westerlund's band Plain Ride are now on board so we have three guitar guys riffing it up relentlessly. These two brother guys have since worked their way up to joining Circle proper and they are awesome!! One is on the left stereo channel and one is on the right, usually, and they blend together in a really wonderful way like siamese twins or something. They really beef up the overall sound and now there are much more interesting little tangled deep details to listen to winding in and out of the basic riffs. ALSO Hans Joachim Irmler of the legendary band Faust is here playing organ and sound effects!! Fucking right! This albums is really super cool with very good sound, especially the drums, although it mostly sticks to the tried and true PO formula. The standout tune is a new long ass one, divided into two tracks, where the two brothers really shine.

Hey all, nice to be back! Ahhh, so what was in the sandbox thread? I missed it!

In case anyone is on the fence about any of the newer vinyl releases I would like to take this opportunity to say that PO Horn is crazy awesome and I've been listening to it everyday for like a month straight. High energy rock and roll mayhem!

Ha - I started the sandbox thread because I was so excited about buying this record and wanted to tell someone how great it was, but there was nowhere to put it. I'm not sure a whole lot else got accomplished while you were gone, but I think we made a convert or two?

I say "grafted" on because they totally don't mix with the music at all!

I don't hear it! I feel like both he and Circle do pretty well together on this one and fall really flat on Hollywood. What is "Out of Darkness"?

Ah, a Pharoah Overlord album.

Pharoah Overlord placed in this years metal poll (which is still counting down)

IV is awesome btw possibly my fave PO

I believe that 2012 is set to be a busy one for Circle/Pharaoh Overlord/NWOFHM followers. The first announcements are out...

Circle - Serpent

Live from Bristol, UK in October 2011 and out soon on CD on Ektro.

Circle - Manner

New studio album out on 21st April, Record Store Day, on Hydra Head.

Pharaoh Overlord - TBA

As yet untitled new studio album coming on Ektro.

I am particularly excited about Serpent, on a personal front, but I'll say more about that later... :-)

Hydra Head have done limited, fancy vinyl releases for the last few Record Store Day events, so I hope that the Circle album will form part of that for them this year. I assume that it will have a more standard release as well, but a cool coloured vinyl edition would be a nice thing.

There's actually two new Pharaoh Overlord tracks up on the Ektro soundcloud page."Rodent" and "Cardinal" and the accompanying thumbnail shows a 75 minute long 5 track album called 'Lunar Jetman': http://soundcloud.com/ektrorecords

OK, so the news is out and I'm incredibly pleased and excited to announce...

Circle's forthcoming 'Serpent' live album, recorded at the Croft in Bristol in October 2011 and due on Ektro Records in a few weeks, will rather prominently feature my photographs of the band from when I met them in Birmingham on the same UK tour!

This is the cover, I believe, but just wait until you see the full fold-out poster/booklet!

http://www.ektrorecords.com/gfx/jaetut/ektro-071_270px.jpg

That was a great show too. Much better IMO than the SSonic one.

On Hydra Head?!?! Nice. Should make it a lot easier to track down.

So is Hollywood pretty much the worst Circle record to date? I was so disappointed in that one.

awesome news, bring it all on! congrats Krakow!

Part of my problem with Earthworm is that the song Earthworm is soooo great and I always wish I could hear it given the proper studio Circle treatment that the live versions hint at. Which isn't necessarily fair I admit.

I definitely prefer Hollywood to Earthworm. Of course it has 2 Earthworm songs for some random reason?! I think it would be stronger with out them and also without the last two songs which I think are epic failures. The 4-5 songs in the middle are all really cool methinks. But overall i think the best stuff with Duff are the songs he sings on Out Of Darkness. He seems much more comfortable in that overt metal context. And unlike IV, OoD is an honest to god balls to the wall heavy metal album.

I think it would be stronger with out them and also without the last two songs which I think are epic failures.

I totally agree with this, actually. It's really jarring having those two songs shoehorned in there. And the last two are literally failed epics, yo. I'm going to have to check out Out of Darkness, sounds like it might be right up my alley.

Panic - I finally drew some conclusions about this album after listening to it for a few years. It's like Circle dissected... By dissected I mean Mika Ratto has been separated from the band completely. It feels to me as if we're getting a glimpse of a Circle that might have existed in some strange alternate universe where they never meet Ratto and the world is some kind of scary police state where everyone has a choice of playing either punk rock or atmospheric electronic music!!! The first 3 songs appear to be Mika's tunes, and solo. They're all minimalist sequenced synth driven minor key atmospheric excursions along the lines of the group Tangerine Dream. They are excellent! Then all the sudden the biker punk anarcho stomp of the rest of the band explodes into the speakers and they proceed to blaze through a bunch of one or two minute genuine hardcore punk rock songs in ten or twelve minutes. I feel like Ratto is absent but there IS some kind of bizarre and aggressive noisy synth filter-swooping away in the background of all the hardcore tunes so who knows? Incidentally, this mystery synth appears again in a 2007 live Pharaoh Overlord set from the Roadburn festival where it functions much the same way!! Further supporting my theory that Ratto is laying out on these punk tunes is the fact that when these songs are played live Ratto just jogs in place!!! Of course the liner notes, like most NWOFHM tagged releases, feature pseudonyms so it's impossible to say for sure who is doing what... ANYWAY, Westerlund is the vocalist and at his most demented/unhinged. Leppanen once again proves himself to be just about the best drummer in the universe by handling lightning fast d-beats with the greatest of ease. I'm not good at judging punk tunes, but these all seem well enough written? The normal Circle repetition is absent at any rate. When the hardcore songs abruptly end we get a VERY long (10+ min) brooding bass throb drone song that is barely audible! And then out of that bit of seriously dedicated atmosphere an equally narrowly focused klause schultze type sequenced synth excursion appears and just kinda hovers around, pulsating hypnotically for 14 minutes and gradually fading out (the same sequence would later be used in a Katapult song to much better effect!) Every once in a LONG while this last song has a kind of sonar piano ping that chimes off but other than that its pure sequencer with nothing going on! Wtf? I'm still scratching my head five years later! Panic is kind of a weak offering overall, but I think it's worthy for the pure strange incongruity of it all!

Vaahto - Another 7" single. These are two typical five+ minute long Circle songs, one each per side. Typical as in guitar riffs that never end, ostinato clockwork drumming, strange mixing and insane singing. Both tunes actually kind of sound like they're on the wrong speed - it sounds good, but not quite right, on both 33 and 45 speeds!!! I personally can only tell for sure which is correct because of the pitch of the vocals. These songs kind of have a Guillotine/Forest vibe with similar synth work and some recycled sound effects in the background. The first song is a strong mid-paced composition with all the right ingredients for a killer Circle tune but doesn't really add up to anything in the end. The second tune is more interesting, with a rad insistent riff and heavily slowed down and processed singing from Jussi. There is also an off kilter synth melody in the middle and the end that I really like. I'm not a fan of Ratto's harmonica playing, which luckily usually doesn't make it onto the studio albums, but on this song it's used effectively enough. So overall a good bordering on great little single, but not nearly as perfect as the immaculate Elcric of a few years earlier.

Katapult - Katapult, Miljard and the two dvds Saturnus Reality and Man With A Video Camera all came from what appears to have been an epic recording session at Jussi's parents vacation home somewhere in the north of Finland. Katapult is half successful by my reckoning. It sounds really great for a home recording, although the mix is very dominated by all the overdubs and the original tracks are more or less buried. It makes for a strange listen with the drums and bass greatly minimalized; unfortunately this weakens the music quite a bit since Circle is such a rhythmic band. There is however a LOT of neat sounding percussion stuff in every song which takes up the slack. Interestingly, Westerlund gets the bass credit here and Jussi the guitars! It's all shorter songs and it's all very busy with a sort of black metal prog bend. There is a LOT of singing on this one. The black metal vocal approach seems quite serious and well intentioned but the end result is pretty ridiculous a lot of the time! I actually sort of think it would make more sense labelled as a Ratto Ja Lehtisalo metal album. There is a lot going on here but it's a little unfocused sometimes compared to their usual offerings, short songs that are sometimes a little aimless. This is an album that seemed very strong at first but as time goes by I'm less and less interested in it. These are all songs that seem to have largely been sculpted in the overdub process, so it's more focused on the synths, vocals and percussion than usual. We have a lot of metal riffage usually contrasted with clean chimey lines a little farther back in the mix. The highlights for me are Ratto's layered synth masterpiece Four Points of the Compass, Torpedo Star Throne with the relentless machine drumming courtesy of Leppanen and Understanding New Age, which features a majestic Mika Ratto vocal in the middle section. This might be a good one for people with shorter attention spans who like a lot of variety and shorter, more colorful songs.

Miljard - This 2xcd extravaganza is something else entirely, a truely exceptional oddity in a catalog where oddities are the rule of the game. Like I said somewhere above, it sort of sounds to me like frozen notes floating in an isolation chamber somewhere in Antarctica. All atmosphere, soundscapes and disembodied sounds cushioned by some excellent ear candy reverb effects. Still and calm are the rules of the game, along with rubato time. That is to say that the tempo is as slow as possible and supremely flexible. There is a general pulse in the place of the usual strict rhythm, and the notes are laid out in time with utmost freedom so this album is kind of like Circle at their most expressive or emotional, riding on pure instinct and guided by purest feelings. Ratto's piano dominates throughout and he gets a producer credit for his efforts. It seems during the session they recorded a lot of slow formless songs like this and Ratto took them and sculpted them to completion on his own. According to an interview with Jussi, Ratto calls them "piano pieces" and indeed, there is a LOT of digital piano here. These songs feature all sorts of pinging, ponging, tinkling, well placed low notes and little melodic squiggles distributed tunefully throughout. There is very little percussion, Leppanen seems to have limited himself to some little synth work way in the distance, and sometimes free stuttering percussion hits on the rims of the drums, both performed with admirable restraint. There is a lot of great tangled-sounding clean guitar work and also tons of tasty slow bass improvisation from Jussi. Some of it is even quite smokey and jazzy! The only tune that resembles a normal Circle song, and only remotely at that, is the final song. This 20+ minute long tune, Viitane, is a definite career highlight and is seriously, righteously awesome. Leppanen plays some tasty propulsive clip-clop percussion with toe tapping rimshots wayyyyy in the background giving it that inmitable Circle motorik vibe so lacking in the rest of the album. It's not at all clear what Jussi and Westerlund are up to, however, as the main backing track mostly gets mixed out! This is all Ratto's show and he delivers the goods with gusto. It's one of the scariest and most menacing Circle songs, conjuring up all sorts of hellish imagery with super low dissonant piano notes drenched in some incredibly atmospheric reverb. In fact, it's almost a study in the psychological effects of the tritone note! The mixing here is remarkable, nothing stays still and the different sounds all seem to have taken on lives of their own. There's really not much going on here except tons of deep synth drones, blurred piano ostinatos, the occasional bass piano notes and some wheezing sound effects but it never gets even remotely boring. A sort of zen masterpiece, really. Without this song, the album would be much weaker but with it Miljard becomes an indominatable shapeshifting monolith of droning noodley ambience, a yin yang mirage of minimalism; pretty and simplistic on the surface but hellish and dense when you truly listen. A truly special Circle album, one you can take home and play for your mother even!

Saturnus Reality DVD - A quasi-documentary about the Circle recording session which produced the Miljard and Katapult albums. I say quasi because much of it is staged and there isn't much playing at all! There is a lot of music of course, the music is in fact a main character, we just don't see them play it!! Overall it is not what you expect necessarily (although it is rather tripped out) but is actually a very beautiful film documenting the friendship of four musicians and how their friendship strengthens their music. The best part is a cut up slow motion segment towards the end, when the film becomes pure montage. In this segment you pretty much just see Jussi and Ratto goofing off! There is some of the prettiest Miljard music backing their hijinks and shots of daylight and the car journey home through the beautiful landscapes are intercut with it all so that a truly inspiring sense of nostalgia is evoked. Also worked into the film at various parts are old family films in 8mm or 16mm and the contrast is very nicel; we see how this is a kind of family film documenting the band members' friendship at that exact point in time. The filmmaker didn't get much out of the band as far as soundbites go, but Ratto has some wisdom which gets repeated as a kind of thematic motif to tie the film together. He speaks of rituals and how our lives are composed of rituals, we're always repeating our mundane daily tasks, and upon reflection it's all very relevant to Circle's music and why it works so well... good stuff, indeed! The Saturnus Reality DVD is unfortunately light on footage of the band actually playing but you do get to see Jussi recording the vocals for the Katapult song Saturnus Reality on the front porch in the middle of the night! Then they all discuss how it isn't commercial and the people abroad won't be able to understand the lyrics! Haha, okay guys! There's only two truly killer jams of any length, the first is a Forest type tune - Leppanen plays some crazy awesome ethnic/tribal robot drum patterns, Westerlund riffing it up on a banjo (!), Ratto alternately speaking in tongues and playing some demented harmonica (which is gripped between his teeth!!!) while also playing rattling percussion with his two hands... all the while Jussi plays an open bass guitar note with one hand and also rattles percussion (or sings into a mic he picks up) with the other!! The second longish jam is also a Foresty one but also with elements of free jazz in the drumming, like one of the Vesiliirto songs. After they come to a stop we see Leppanen grinning and nodding with pleasure and then Jussi reaches over to rewind the cassette recorder so they can listen to it!!! Really cool, if ultimately only a curiosity for non fans!

Man With A Video Camera DVD - This is a film by (i think!) the editor and one of the camera operators on the Saturnus Reality DVD. It's a documentary about the maker of the SR DVD, a bearded old head named Esko, and it is more an examination of his and Mika Ratto's personal creative process in the making of the aforementioned film. I think it's a bit more richer/rewarding the SR proper, but not as interesting an artistic statement. It is a more candid, that is to say less staged, look at the week-long recording session and the working artistic processes of Ratto are quite illuminating. Ratto is a full partner in the endeavor, it turns out, and neither of the film makers has any clear idea what to do with the concept of a Circle documentary. It's a great companion piece to SR and offers an interesting alternate perspective of the earlier DVD. It might have worked better as an extra on SR, but it's fine on it's own too assuming you've seen SR or have a vested interest in the band. There is also a bonus short film, scored by Circle and quite good really, about a Japanese restaurant owner who's shop is in Finland and how he has to close it down.

two things:

1) will rather prominently feature my photographs of the band from when I met them in Birmingham on the same UK tour! of course! your photos are the best, it was only a matter of time. congrats!

2) i am listening to the Tower LP, which I just bought today on a whim. The clerk had exactly 0 comments about my purchase, which i am chalking up to inexperience on his part and not lack of discrimination on mine ;) anyway, it's super mellow and really perfect for the twilight hours.

Thanks very much La Lechera!

I have started to tweet Circle-related news-type things here, just in case anyone is interested... https://twitter.com/#!/NWOFHM

shit, thanks Krakow, didn't know about this Split Cranium thing!

Getting my first listen to the Split Cranium 7'' right this instant!

nice! pretty curious about this one but def not spending $9 plus shipping on a 7".

It's good! Fast & heavy. A lot going on in under 3 minutes, it moves quickly. Some nice screaming guitar work.

http://splitcranium.bandcamp.com/

Is it just the one song?

Mixed by Kurt Ballou!! Always nice to see his name!

Yeah, one song & a Daniel Menche mix on the 7''. There is an album in a couple of months too, around March time.

New Jussi solo album out on LP at the end of the month via Full Contact/Svart, see the usual Ektro websites...

placing an order from Profound Lore, and thinking about getting 1-2 of these Circle records from the distro section. what's best of these??

- Rautatie
- Rakennus (live)
- Taaatumus

from searching this thread, i see LOTS of love for Taantumus, not so much for Rautatie (new 2010 album?) and not a peep about Rakennus either way. Taantumus it is.... still would love to hear some chatter though! are the other two any good?

I'm absolutely in love with Rautatie nowadays! It has some amazing hard-rocking catchy tunes on it, for example this absolute stormer... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HblGXkf2LdY

Rautatie = a prog rock explosion, with their most intricate compositions and 3 guitars all tangled together. I LOOOOOVE it, but it is a grower.

Rakkenus = has one KILLER live song, a version of virsi, but otherwise is a straightforward live album that is sorta warts-and-all like a Grateful Dead dick's picks or something

Taantumus = classic, classic, classic and lots of songs/colors

Am rally looking forward to another Jussi solo! Rotta is a wonderful cloudy atmospheric journey

I second liam on all of that.

haha the giant picture of Tuomas is almost too much krakow