Kajaani Issues: Teil 1/2

The first of two compilations of material from artists aligned with Finland’s FAK Records. Finland was a curious stronghold for minimal electronics and techno through the nineties – think also of the artists circling around the Sähkö label, figures like Pan Sonic and Jimi Tenor. FAK, and artists like Turku Coll. or Restore, comes at things from a different angle, but there’s maybe some similarity in the sheer single-mindedness of vision. The sound is slightly cranky, roughly handled, full of burbling acid patterns cranked to burst, thudding rhythms cracking open icy silences, long stretches of nothing much happening – but that ‘nothing much’ is more compelling than endless busy-ness. Maybe this is projecting a set of cultural assumptions onto the music, but it feels vaguely arctic, and as though it’s broadcast, through chill winds, via shortwave radio – landing scattered, fuzzy, but thrilling, in your ears.