Sahko Finland Vinilo y CD

Review: Sahko continues to deliver new vinyl pressings of lauded, in-demand items from the bulging back catalogue of sadly departed Finnish experimentalist Mika Vaino. The latest to get the treatment is Vaino's 2008 set Oleva, his fifth solo outing under the alternative O alias. The album remains one of Vaino's most magical, in part because it counters his usual icy, creepy and sometimes intense experimental sound with ambient, IDM and rhythm-driven pieces that variously draw on electro and industrial sounds. It contains some genuinely stunning moments of both darkness and light, including a number of widescreen epics that sound like they were tailor-made for black and white, European art-house movies.

Review: Sahko continues to deliver new vinyl pressings of lauded, in-demand items from the bulging back catalogue of sadly departed Finnish experimentalist Mika Vaino. The latest to get the treatment is Vaino's 2008 set Oleva, his fifth solo outing under the alternative O alias. The album remains one of Vaino's most magical, in part because it counters his usual icy, creepy and sometimes intense experimental sound with ambient, IDM and rhythm-driven pieces that variously draw on electro and industrial sounds. It contains some genuinely stunning moments of both darkness and light, including a number of widescreen epics that sound like they were tailor-made for black and white, European art-house movies.

Review: Nenad Markovi? cooks up some more of his magisterially slow and seductive sounds for the Sahko label outta Finland. Using his trusted tools he opens up on 'Iz Usta,' with a balmy vibe, dreamy pads and percolating beats all finished off with distant bird calls. It goes on for nearly ten minutes and makes great use of every single second. A real epic. On the flip is 'Danasananas,' another super slow workout that gets you in raptures with its gently jostling drum work and aqueous effects.

Review: The thing about early synthesiser music is that there's always a new mad scientist to discover. Take Osmo Lindeman, for example. While the real electronic sonic historians will likely be familiar with this Finnish experimental pioneer and master film scorer, most other people probably won't be. Thankfully, then, this collection of his most plugged-in works can set the record straight. A package that celebrates his avant garde approach to marrying gadgets and gizmos with the brassy seduction of jazz. So although the tracks here may not be his most renowned contributions to the pantheons - see the soundtracks to Rakas, Totuus on armoton, and Tulipunainen kyyhkynen - the Electronic Works gathered by the Sahko Finland team are certainly among his most groundbreaking and boundary pushing. Like listening to what outer space may have sounded like if it put on a concert in the late-1960s featuring trumpet and sax maestros, prepare for a series of fascinating audio adventures and juxtapositions.

Review: After briefly appearing as one of those enigmatic Sahko white labels, we weren't sure if Konstellaatio would be pressed up for a general release, but thankfully, our Finnish friends are wary of our electronic needs...This LP is Classic Mika under his O guise - one saved primarily for his most contemplative works - and it's one of those releases that will capture you from the start and make you want some therapy at the end of it. Rich, textural drones running the whole way through and accompanied by sparse, doomed melodies and fluttering beats. It's a spectacular ordeal of harmonic delight. Don't wait around because these won't last for very long...

Review: To mangle a cliche, former Pan Sonic man Mika Vainio has released more solo albums than you've had hot dinners. This is his ninth alone under the O moniker, and his 21st in total. Konstellaatio is perhaps not as out-there as some of his excursions, concentrating mostly on icy, atmospheric fusions of spacey, minimalist ambience, sparse, stargazing electronica, and tense, tactile soundscapes. As a result, it's unfussily beautiful, wringing maximum emotion from the most limited of elements. While it's all very good, at its' very best - such as on the 2001: A Space Odyssey style spookiness of "Metsan Sydan" - it's utterly astonishing.

Review: Here's a rare treat for fans of the late, great Mika Vainio: the first ever release of a recently re-discovered soundtrack he created (both solo, as "O", and alongside Ilpo Vaisanen and Sami Salo as Pan Sonic) for Jimi Tenor's long-forgotten 1994 experimental film, "Sahko: The Movie". Fans will love it: the solo "O" material, showcased on the A side, is icy, hypnotic and often bleep-laden ambient techno of the sort Vainio excelled at earlier in his career. The Pan Sonic material on the flipside, meanwhile, is deep, droning and mind-altering electro-acoustic ambience that's up there with the very best of their work. In other words, you need this in your life.

Review: Here's something to stir the hearts of all fans of Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen's Panasonic/Pansonic project: a trio of long-lost remixes that were created, but for some reason never released, way back in 1996. Side A boasts an epic revision from long-serving Newcastle experimentalists Zoviet France, who turn an untitled Panasonic production into a ghostly trip through hypnotic, minimalist techno territory - all unearthly aural textures, drifting synth sounds and hazy, locked-in drums. Over on side B there's a pair of rare remix outings from the sadly departed Bryn Jones AKA Muslimgauze. He first wraps vocal sounds and twisted electronics around a raw analogue techno groove, before offering up one of his impeccable experimental ambient dub workouts. Of the two, this is undoubtedly the most mesmerising.

Review: Some of you may remember Ricardo Vincenzo from his 2015 debut Pororoca Transatlantica, a two-track missive that blended South American production with all the warmth of sun-kissed downtempo electronica. If anything, this belated follow-up for esteemed Finnish label Sahko is even better. Vincenzo begins with the farmyard animal samples, rolling tribal percussion, African chants and rich electronic bass of "Cabras No Elevado Quilombia", before chopping and looping a dusty old tango track on the mid-tempo house pulse of "Onna No Yujo". On the flip you'll find the low-slung, post-dubstep creepiness of "Haru", where exotic vocal samples drift across a sparse but heavy beat pattern, and the aural trip to Morocco that is "Excellent Drom".

Review: Wow. When you're writing about music releases it's often tempting to present difficult to describe tunes as unique. That's not always factually accurate, though, as is clear when you come across something like this seven-way bag of the wonderfully bizarre. Half the stuff on here, at least, really does defy categorisation, although we can probably lump it all together as experimental, industrial-leaning electronic music with avant-garde tendencies. And a libido. What that describes varies wildly. Nuke Watch's 'NWPJS Perc' interprets the term as a kind of slow build, low BPM workout made up of what could well be the noise of various tools, pipes and taps being struck. Umfang delivers a dark and menacing hip hop-electro instrumental, packed with atmosphere and pent up energy. Ana Fosca goes for shrill refrains and drones. Egg Meat serves a dominatrix of off-time weirdo-techno tones with mind melting percussive cacophonies.