Led by Jan Anderzen, Kemialliset Ystävät are the most visible of Finland’s sub-operatives and the most consistently rewarding. They work in short, spooling instrumentals, building layers of simple repetitive riffs into laminal mudcakes and weaving ghosts of folk song into huge tunnels of drone. Alkuhärkä is their latest Fonal release, another entry in an already barely-quantifiable back catalogue. This one sees their sound slightly rewired in a bid to further bolster the electronic element, with several tracks evoking the cracked neon skies of David Bowie’s Berlin trilogy as well as the early synth experiments of Asmus Tietchens. But overall the sound is acoustic and communal, albeit occasionally propelled by the kind of tranced rock base that launched previous Scandinavian sound thinkers like International Harvester and Träd Gräs och Stenar straight into space. 18 tracks flit past like landscapes glimpsed from a train: marching band melodies scored for duck calls and bells, huge fields of teleporting percussion, accordion-led music box refrains and heartbreaking almost-songs carried on tides of wordless vocals. Recommended. Limited to 500 copies on 220g vinyl.

New album from the duo of Jan Anderzen (Kemialliset Ystavat) and Jani Hirvonen (Uton) with a heady Godz/ESP freak division feel. Lots of chanting, percussion, woozy use of F/X, Angus MacLise worship…

Massive limited edition LP on NNCK’s imprint documenting a series of recordings from this ambitious American/European big band that unites Dave Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band with Spencer Clark and James Ferraro of The Skaters alongside Jan Anderzen of Kemialliset Ystavat, Jonna from Kuupuu, Stellar Om Source, Mik Quantius from Embryo and Tiitus Petajaniemi and Jari Koho of Uton/Keijo. The whole entourage toured through Europe in the spring of 2007 and this LP collects the best of the jams. Three long tracks and one fragment, including two pieces recorded at VPRO Radio. The sound takes off from the kind of free goof blueprint of The Godz, with a lots of percussion and odd rhythmic dunting while The Skaters work lush keyboard parts and a wall of ululating vocal drone deep into the backdrop. Quantius supplies vocals that are somewhere between Don Van Vliet and Alan Bishop and the whole thing proceeds into this kind of weird ethno-zone where fragmented world rhythms and sounds are twisted to dark, psychotropic ends. But the real gravy is the side long fourth track, the most convincing update of the monochord bass/drum confusion of Skip Spence’s “Grey/Afro” ever improvised in real time, combining sublime vocal highs with a hypnotic bottom end. Highly recommended.

Two new tracks of post-Godz aural confusion and homemade psych from these Finnish nuts that sometimes feature Chris Corsano. On Jan Anderzen of Kemialliset Ystavat’s label. “Two tracks by the Puke Eaters, the A side was originally conceived as a theme for an album dealing with Deihoma, the man who wandered inside "the Worm that ate the world" in order to slay it. Strictly Steen & Rusty, as inept as ever. B side has Rusty involved in the act of synthesizer desecration with some nameless slave. Steen Guru vocals were added later via the method of overdubbing.” - Ralf Normaali

Great new album from Jan Anderzen’s Chemical Friends, three years in the making, with a freeform freakout style that could almost be The Familiar Ugly on The Red Krayola’s Parable Of Arable Land. There’s also a newfound ‘song’ quality to many of the tracks, with snatches of melody and hints of vocal arcs that float like Popol Vuh choirs above the flashing electronics, hand-drums and toytown tropicalia. Aspects of Astral Social Club and Monopoly Child Star Searchers combine in weird childlike hymns that could almost pass for a Japanese Ya Ho Wha soundtracking a Hawaiian beach monster movie. Nostalgic, funny, uniquely compelling, with guest appearances from a bunch of key underground players including C. Spencer Yeh, Neil Campbell, Hitoshi Kojo, Pekko Kappi and Niko-Matti Ahti.

Great new album from Jan Anderzen’s Chemical Friends, three years in the making, with a freeform freakout style that could almost be The Familiar Ugly on The Red Krayola’s Parable Of Arable Land. There’s also a newfound ‘song’ quality to many of the tracks, with snatches of melody and hints of vocal arcs that float like Popol Vuh choirs above the flashing electronics, hand-drums and toytown tropicalia. Aspects of Astral Social Club and Monopoly Child Star Searchers combine in weird childlike hymns that could almost pass for a Japanese Ya Ho Wha soundtracking a Hawaiian beach monster movie. Nostalgic, funny, uniquely compelling, with guest appearances from a bunch of key underground players including C. Spencer Yeh, Neil Campbell, Hitoshi Kojo, Pekko Kappi and Niko-Matti Ahti.

Edition of 300 copies picture disc with art on the flip presenting one of Jan Anderzen’s most psychedelic and hypnotically rocking sides. This self-titled collection, originally commissioned by the Aanen Lumo Festival for New Sounds, starts off like an early Sonic Boom side with fast tremolo guitar and padding motorik rhythms beneath hysterically modulated and extended vocals eventually locking-down into a fantastic eternal groove. But soon the whole thing devolves into what sounds like a chopped and screwed Arkestra tackling “The Satellites Are Spinning”. Obsessively constructed psychedelic electronica, set to stun. Recommended. 

Edition of 60 copies self-released live album from Finnish communal heads Uton. This one features two complete live shows, from Copenhagen and Berlin in 2008. The sound is wilder and little more pro-Industrial than recent Uton white-outs, with monolithic machine noise, infernal drones and the vibrations of distant factories charging the air with forms and shadows somewhere between Throbbing Gristle and the original Dream Syndicate.

Edition of 60 copies self-released album from Finnish cosmonauts Uton. This one combines distant music box/ethnic melodies with sandpaper coarse shortwave tones, bursts of analogue electricity and some almost Takayanagi-esque feedback/noise constructs.

Edition of 60 copies self-released album from this Finnish ethnic psych/jam outfit. Five tracks that move from screaming automatic-music Fluxus-style instants to protesting post-Conrad/Cale violin noise and psychoactive small instrument trance.

New set of “shamanic music in urban context” from the duo of Uton (Finland) and Anla Courtis (Argentina) on Sachiko’s (Kousokuya/Overhang Party) label: Courtis is of course best known as a member of Reynols and here he re-works original drone material from Uton using guitar, homemade violin, organ, plastic trumpet, metal, horns and tapes. The results are beautifully confusing, with a deep miasmic dronescape ala Zeit-era Tangerine Dream give an aggressive hands-on tactile appeal, confusing the masses of Herman Nitsch with the metal meditations of Philip Corner or Ferial Confine. The way that discrete, distant melodies seep into the foreground like snatches of children’s musical boxes is almost unnerving but it’s the physical, aggressively formulated soundings that really give this set much of its immersive power. Nice full colour fold out packaging too.