Breaking the radio silence with a short summary of my last year — and some news about what’s coming next.
I was working a lot. I made at least two soundtracks, a new (yet unreleased) album and composed a lot of new music for my next releases. We also launched a new multimedia art project about virus representations and language (together with Matti Pohjonen). I work as the art director and sound designer in the project. “Beauty Is a Virus” will be happening this year.
Last year I’ve been also reading a lot. Not being able to play concerts has had this fortunate side effect on me. I think Andri Snær’s book On Time and Water was the most important one last year. If you haven’t read it, read it.
I also read a lot of Spinoza. I like his thinking a lot! I also read a lot about panpsychism, OOO, daoism, dzogchen and zen. Gnosticism is interesting, too, but I just don’t know what to make of their ideas amidst the climate catastrophe. The physical reality seems quite important now. But I still find the gnostic writings and ideas super interesting. They make me think about the Metaverse and all of that shit. Panpsychism and daoism on the other hand seem to offer some perspectives on the ecological crisis. About two years ago I started growing my collection of Dao De Jing translations and I think I have about fifteen now in Finnish and English. But that’s also a topic for another time. Another reason I’ve been reading all this stuff is because I’m currently studying theology, mostly philosophy of religion.
Last autumn I continued developing Future Rust and The International Handpan Day. In 2021 Handpan Day grew into a 24-hour online festival with over 20 performers and live participants and thousands of people from around the world. My friend and colleague Connor Shafran joined the Future Rust core team, and we are now working on a label redesign. Obviously this means that we are also going to release more interesting music on the label
More on all these topics later!
