The set from last Saturday has been uploaded to archive.org. The event was held on a sunny beach, and the sunrise colored the landscape pure red. The performance took place at midnight. The set is a mixture of stochastic processes and harmonic determination.

http://www.archive.org/details/srn2010-07-24

On the first of August I’ll be playing on an island. The island is not far from the mainland, just a few minutes away. I’ll employ spectral music technique to create the harmonics of the set from the frequencies present on the island. The event is organized by Nomadic Academy of Experimental Arts.

Last Friday saw the opening ceremony of Mustarinda art center / ground station. The set is now available in its entirety from archive.org. The center is on top of a 380 meter high hill, and its surrounded by an ancient forest.

The performance was delivered via a powerful PA system, which allowed the sound to propagate through the surrounding area. The melodies and notes were mostly created by stochastic algorithms.

Another part of the unedited (meaning everything that has been recorded is going to be released) sarana history is now on-line. The tracks of this volume have been crafted between early Summer and late August of 1999.

Archive vol. 11 – Deeper Caverns.

On 9th May I had an intuitive jam with Blu from UK, via Ninjam. Two human beings met without much planning to have a dialogue by sounds they make. The experience was somewhat otherworldly, as we both concentrated on the same moment but were physically separated by thousands of kilometers. It has had a lasting effect. There are no distances.

The more the reality is changed to be in unison with as many people as possible, the easier it is to realize how close we all are to each other. In the depths of our minds we are all intimately connected.

That gave me an idea of an ambient event where all of the performances would be duets (or more), where the other player resided anywhere in the globe. A video feed would also be provided and processed to with the atmosphere of the event. A reflection of that idea is coming up soonish, as I will play a live duet jam with Tange on StillStream when a few technical issues have been solved.

Sarana and Blu : May Session on Archive.org

I’m currently going through the tracks that will be the 11th volume of my archives.  The journey is interesting, personal and revealing… For most of the tracks (practically all of them) that I have released my friends have been the only audience.

It’s hard to fathom that the tracks I’m going through now have been conceived 11 years ago. Here’s one track from the past – Solina. Solina is Finnish and means the sound which water makes when it flows around small pebbles and things. In this case the actual sound comes from the kitchen sink of the flat where I lived back then.

I had a microphone by the sink, let the water run and recorded the track live without much preparations. The basis of the track is a 7/4 beat that probably took a some time to create. Back then if a track took more than an hour to compose I considered it too much.

The steady pulse that goes with the beat is DX-7, which is set to play one note only, and which takes the trigger from any midi input that comes from the drum machine. I used this method often, and all kinds of fruitful melodies revealed themselves now and then.

Over the beat Polysix goes through an arpeggio, which is not synced to anything. The few note melody comes from a Casio keyboard, which I intuitively played while mixing the track. The hardest to mix was usually the drum machine, DR-660, because I had to mix its sounds individually in and out, and the interface is not very intuitive.

All the mixing was done while performing the tracks – there wasn’t any automation or pre-recorded backgrounds.

This is the only take of the track. I usually had some plan in my mind how I would mix the sounds in but I never planned how to end the tracks. The latest element that is mixed in, the noisy choir, is something I grabbed from some passing TV-show of the moment.

The tenth volume of my archives is now available from archive.org.

I’ve just uploaded a new track to MySpace.

The track has been loitering on one of my hard disks for some time, since 2004.

The recording was accomplished without overdubs, and the track features distorted analogue synth lead and uncontrolled resonances on a slow and steady beat.  I accidentally opened the original 44 kHz recording at 48 kHz for mastering, so the final track became 47 seconds shorter and somewhat higher pitched than the original.

The track is called Nimetön, which means Unnamed or Nameless. It’s also the name of the ring finger. Now that I looked it up I also found out that in some cultures the finger in question has healing and magical powers.

The latest set is now available from archive.org. The performance took place mid day at a penthouse space in the downtown of Helsinki. The event was called Ambient-aamiainen (Ambient Breakfast). The guests were served with food and music. There also was a yoga session and sauna was warm all of the day.

I actually forgot to bring with me the transformer for the other effect device that has used to be part of my live setup, so the set became even more minimal.

The weather was grayish, the temperature was just above zero. The whiteness of winter passing away, melting, the sun behind clouds providing even light. I don’t think weather can be dull or horrible. Try this next time when it’s dark, raining or everything generally seems ugly: it’s a perfect ugly weather. I don’t think you can never be really disappointed with anything by thinking like that – “this outcome is the most extremely succeeded example of how things shouldn’t go”, for example.

I’ve been quite busy lately. I’ve been finalizing the sound work for one short indie film, and during the comings months I’ll be composing music and design the sound for a longer indie feature.  A couple of musical collaboration projects will begin too in the coming months. I’m also collaborating in a sound design project for the Finnish Aviation Museum. I have practically devoted all of my time to creating audio or visuals (I do visual and www stuff as a day job at the moment).

I’ll be playing live too in a couple of weeks. The event is called Ambient Breakfast, and the idea is to cook food to the guests and make them as comfortable as possible while listening to the soothing ambient music.  My set will take place around the noon, and I look forward to playing during the daylight.

Here’s a poem I’ve written on  a train to somewhere…

When the night falls, begin
the shadows their journey towards light,
from which they draw their vitality.

At the moment of blue twilight, the time
momentarily stands still, and in the frontiers
light and shadow become one, entangled
to each others’ dreams and expectations.

Light has gone its way, and the ways
have created shadows, like an oar
disturbs water and animates the waves.

What moves light? Infinitely it sparkles,
twinkles, changes places with a dark stream and looks
for a place to rest,
as quickly as possible.

It was the darkest day of the year yesterday, but what a view in the morning.

I wish you all come back refreshened – a whole new revolution around the sun is just around the corner.

Latest set is now uploaded to Archive.org. It’s an intuitive abstract ambient set where the notes and harmonies were mostly derived from various sounds. The sources were for example cockpit voice recordings, laughter of adults and children, whispered words and nature sounds.

Sometimes the sounds were used individually and sometimes they were mixed together. I monitored the derived midi notes and hit some static chords on top of the FFT-midi note stream. The first composition was something that build itself up during the sound check. After that all of the rest was improvised.

Sometimes a sound triggers the next composition, sometimes a feeling  needs to be composed. It’s a purifying experience, where one is deeply concentrated on the present and on the change.

There was a small lake near the place where I lived at the time of processing the tracks for Andra. I often walked up there to get some fresh air. The lake was connected to a bigger lake by a small waterway, and there was a small bridge on which I used to rest and ponder things, while watching the waters underneath.

The picture was taken from the bridge towards the smaller lake. It was a late winter – early spring afternoon. I especially like that time of the year. The sun can barely overcome the almost freezing temperatures, and the air is crisp and clear. It’s warm if you stay still and there’s no wind, but when you move a bit or it begins to wind just slightly…

I’ll be playing a live set on StillStream on Friday the 11th of December. It’ll be three hours and 50 minutes of minimal, intuitive and progressive ambient for the people of Earth. Stay tuned! I’m going to apply spectral analysis to various sounds and soundscapes and turn them into music.

It’s about being still, experiencing the single moment of time and space where all the change is taking place… about concentrating on the present and the transformation of sound. I’m really glad that I’ve been able to get out from using systems of N note polyphony. I can focus on the process itself now. The world is the composer, and I’m the interpreter.

The set will begin at 23:00 GMT, and it’s hosted by Tange on his show ‘Mysterious Semblance’.

Hello, and welcome to a bit redesigned site. Enjoy your stay!