Blog

  • The best poem I’ve written

    I used to write poetry, but I got out of that habit around 2009. A year ago, however, I wrote this piece for a small art zine, which was published at a festival where I played. Just recently, the poem surfaced mysteriously out of somewhere, so I decided to put it here on my blog. It’s also one of the few poems I’ve ever written in English.

    Triads

    Body, mind, soul.
    Water, earth, air.
    Bones, blood, flesh.

    Guitar, bass, drums.
    303, 808, 909.
    Bass, mid, treble.

    Beat, melody, harmony.
    Word, voice, meaning.
    Beginning, middle, end.

    Dead, alive, unborn.
    Love, hate, indifference.
    Light, shadow, darkness.

    Width, height, depth.
    Yesterday, today, tomorrow.
    Far, near, nowhere.

    I, you, she.
    We, you, them.
    Arrive, stay, leave.

    Music, poetry, art.
    Neither, either, both.
    Nothing, something, everything.

    Bach, Mozart, Beethoven.
    Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed.
    Parker, Coltrane, Miles.

    One, two, many.
    Mother, father, child.
    New, old, eternal.

  • Vuorikaiku — a new sound gallery in Helsinki

    Vuorikaiku — a new sound gallery in Helsinki

    The last two months I’ve been busy with a project that I’m very excited about. As an artist focused on sound, I have always hoped that someone would start a simple sound/listening gallery in Helsinki. In March 2014 I will open Vuorikaiku in Arabianranta.

    Some contemporary art galleries here do exhibit sound works every now and then. Couple of years ago Petri Kuljuntausta opened his Akusmata in Töölö and Muu Gallery even runs a series of sound art compilation CDs, but I think there is still space for a more listening oriented galleries in Helsinki.

    What I wanted to do differently, is to create a sound gallery where focus will be only on sound — not on the context, artistic background or technical aspects. Just a plain room with four speakers and somewhere to sit down. In fact, it isn’t even as much about sound art than it is about listening.

    Of course, the exhibited works have their own artistic content, but in Vuorikaiku the audience doesn’t need any prerequisite information about sound art. In fact, works with complicated conceptual layers won’t be exhibited unless their actual sonic qualities are interesting enough. The gallery aims to open the ears and silence the conceptual mind.

    I will be sharing more information about the gallery and the exhibitions at Vuorikaiku blog. You may also like Vuorikaiku at Facebook.

    More to come soon! Keep your eyes — and more importantly, EARS — open!

  • Taikatalvi & the Death of Snufkin

    Taikatalvi & the Death of Snufkin

    Today, I’m playing a live soundtrack to a sound theater play. Laura Jaakkola has directed Tove Jansson’s classic Taikatalvi (Moominland Midwinter) in a series of “adults’ bedtime stories”, that are theater plays performed by voice actors and a musician.

    This seemed a good chance to repost an old song that never got much attention but one that I’m really happy with.

    “The Death of Snufkin” was written (and recorded) during February Album Writing Month 2011 (14 songs in 28 days). It tells the story of the death of Snufkin from the Moomins. I remember describing it back then as a “Moomins at Spoonriver murder ballad”.

    The song is based on a dream, which was most probably influenced by watching too much tv with my 1-year-old daughter. The story goes: the Moomins have locked themselves in their house because the Groke is coming. They’re scared and nervous. Alice, the daughter of the Witch, is with them. She’s holding the shotgun of Moominpappa. Suddenly she sees a shadow behind the window. Panicking she fires the gun. People run out to see if someone is hurt. Snufkin is lying on his back in the middle of broken glass, shocked but unhurt. No blood. Only a see-through hole in the middle of his chest. It is revealed that he doesn’t have a heart and is thus unharmed by the shot. (This is also why he can seem such a cold bastard sometimes.) He says it hurts nonetheless and he’d better be leaving. Moominpappa gives him a horse and tells him to ride to the nearby town for a doctor. Snufkin answers that the place where he goes next is a very dark place. The end of the dream.

    They ought to film this. People with animation skills, contact me. I wanna see this as a dark black and white oldschool Tove Jansson style short animation!

    Lyrics:

    my life from the start was a neverending road
    the continous movement of soul was my home
    friends i had all over but they never had me
    i left them when i wanted to feel i am free

    now that i am gone the longing you feel
    is exactly the same that always drove me

    i hated the tyrants and scorned all the rules
    made by selfish and ignorant fools
    i didn’t own anything, only memories i kept
    (because) i thought of property always as a theft

    now that i am gone the longing you feel
    is exactly the same that always drove me

    if you needed advice you came to me
    but what made me wander i couldn’t see
    i felt if i stayed i’d be smothered to death
    by your kindness and that’s why i left

    now that i am gone the longing you feel
    is exactly the same that always drove me

    in a fear-born accident i got shot through the chest
    the shooter was a girl and like me just a guest
    i said it hurts even though i don’t have a heart
    then i stood up and left to a place in the dark

    now that i am gone the longing you feel
    is exactly the same that always drove me

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