Brand new split 7” from zonked Finnish folk spirit Merja Kokkonen of Avarus/Kemialliset Ystävät et al and fellow subterranean basement wowzers, TV-Resistori, covering each other’s songs. Very personal/handmade feel, zoned atmosphere, great use of the format.

New LP by this Finnish electro-pop unit on Fonal who had a previous split 7” with Islaja. Printed inner sleeves. “TV-Resistori's debut album came out in 2004. With their childlike melodies and cheezy synthesizer tunes names like Stereolab, Raymond Scott, Karkkiautomaatti and Mouse On Mars might pop up. If Fonal ever has a hit single it might very well come from Tv-Resistori. Yrjö's and Päivi's male/female vocal duets have become more and more the center of the songs. Now with the apt record engineering skills of the drummer Aleksi they have truly found their own sound Tv-resistori will release their follow up “Serkut rakastaa paremmin” (translates as Cousins Love Better).”

Latest album from Merja aka Islaja with a classic bats Euro-chanteuse sleeve ala Brigitte Fontaine and more of an experimental electro-pop feel that internalises her recent experiments with Blevin Blechdom and Samara Lubelski. “Islaja has left the forests and moss-covered paths behind. Through an underground tunnel, she wandered off towards the city and found you again. She came in through the door as you were taking out the rubbish. Or through the window you opened on a summer’s night. Do you feel as though you’re not alone, even if there’s no one else in the house? Look around you and you’ll see – Islaja, petrified into a ceramic head on your window sill, on your television set.” – Fonal.

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.

Numbered edition of 120 copies CD-R documenting a live performance by Finnish folk spirit Jonna Karanka aka Kuupuu in Germany. More punk primitive than her studio recordings, this still succeeds in transporting you to the heart of the wood with toy instruments, bells, phased vocals and uncanny loops. At points it sounds like Jonna is channeling Eastern European volk music – waltzes, social music, hypnotic ethnic melodies – and slowly reducing them to flat-lined drones, at others like the she’s fantasising a future-prefect take on classic acid folk. Jonna makes some of the most bewitching small instrument psychedelia of any of the Finnish experimentalists. Packaged in a full-colour gatefold sleeve.