Written down mostly as a personal reminder and amusement, much like most of this journal.

Kiasma theatre, Friday

Arrived in time to catch the first film screening in the early afternoon. Sähkömetsä 3, Finnish experimental films (from a wide period of 1957-88), loosely linked together with the “man/machine” theme. Runoja 60-luvulta (”Poems from the 60’s”). The visuals in the part with Claes Andersson’s poems curiously reminded me of underground black metal aesthetics – high-contrast black & white shots of trees and other similarly bleak.

Next: The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes by the brothers Timothy & Stephen Quay. It turned out to be a beautiful, extremely carefully set up, surreal and dreamlike movie containing and exploring many layers upon layers both within the story and the visual imagery. Very impressive. Not being an expert on movies and directors, I can only make up limping comparisons to David Lynch or Derek Jarman perhaps… nevertheless warmly recommended.

Tony Conrad appeared like a truly charming gentleman, obviously a great artist yet with a nice, humble presence. Before the live performance Conrad showed us a couple of his short films from the 70’s, both of which in their own ways related to sound and music. The first film was quite interesting, flickering stripes black & white that also triggered the sound (as mr. Conrad told in the brief introduction). The second one, Cycles of 3’s and 7’s, was a painfully long (31 minutes to be exact) flick of calculations with a Canon (product placement) pocket calculator that every time turned out somewhat erroneous. Tiresome yet repeatedly funny… Ok… finally it was time to perform. Tony Conrad delivered a beautiful, lengthy piece of resonant drones, with just a violin and presumably some effects to enrich the sound. The bright spotlight directed towards the audience forced me to close my eyes and just listen, slowly drift among the waves and drown into this vast, deep ocean of sound…

Avanto Club, Kuudes linja, Friday

Had to stand in queue for at least half an hour before we got it. Luckily the weather was bearable. Once in, heard that Carlos Giffoni had played already. The place was packed, steaming hot and smokey. Lau Nau got on stage and performed quite to my expectations; fragile and nice if not always too impressive folky songs. I’m sure it would’ve worked better in a different environment… The energy on stage was raised to a new level as Tony Conrad joined Lau Nau & co and off they went with droney improv. Unfortunately the sauna-like qualities of the place forced me to back into an empty corner in search of oxygen and something to drink.

Nash Kontroll were next. They delivered a strong and loud improvised noise set with a touch of free-jazz thanks to the saxophones. Perhaps a bit lengthy set but the trio managed to keep it variable and enjoyable enough all the way through.

With Nash Kontroll I obviously reached a saturation point for the night. The trio of Kaukolampi, Puranen & Nykänen, who closed the evening, sounded rather bland on the first couple of tracks… something like a diluted version of Opel Bastards. Enough is enough, time to go get some sleep. On the yard, Lasse and Tommi were waiting for a cab, and I had to decline Lasse’s vain attempt to trade his Agrentinian woolly hat to my new big hand-made furry hat… no chance, trading birthday gifts is bad karma!

Kiasma Theatre, Saturday

Our Daily Bread by Nikolaus Geyrhalter worked as a reminder on the origins and processes of mass-produced food. Focusing on the visual impact (finding geometry, repetition, simplicity), and leaving out all narration and such, the film offered almost surreal and (excuse the pun) tasty food for the eye and the mind, yet at the same time disturbing due to the subject matter explored. I still wonder how the employees, at those chick farms especially, can tolerate their jobs from day to day. Go see it if you have a chance and you’ll know what I mean.

Then out for lunch… missed a couple of film screenings, back just in time for Caroline Martel’s The Phantom of the Operator. The film starred switchboard operators (ie. the anonymous ladies who connected telephone calls) from America in 1903-1989. The footage was collected from old American films, commercial, educational etc, dealing with telecommunications. The narrator suggested she’s a kind of a ghost in the machine, in other words an Egregore created out of the voices of the operators, dwelling in the telephone network. Now that she’s obsolete, is she still around? Can she be contacted? How and for what purpose, then? A most mind-boggling idea indeed. Makes me think of other devices and environments gone obsolete in modern technology, like old computers and games that people have over time invested a great deal of enthusiasm in…

Next up was a live performance in the theatre. Gert-Jan Prins & Bas van Koolwijk reminded me of the early Avanto years with their glitchy sound and video set. Rather minimal at first but getting more varied and thus more interesting towards the end.

Avanto Club, Gloria, Saturday

Hei. Perhaps the greatest surprise at this year’s Avanto! Mixing them with the so-called “free folk scene” in the info booklet was the most misleading description ever. Hei were very focused, composed ambient-classical-(dare i say even)shoegaze music. The nearest comparison I can think of would be Amber Asylum. The up-pitched vocals – yes, helium/chipmunk style – on one song (and one of the few with sung vocals) brought a nice, almost humorous contrast to their otherwise quite serious approach. Hei are young but obviously very talented people. I predict a bright future for them.

Tomutonttu was something more akin to annoying cacophony than noise. In the beginning some rhythmic elements, and later some manic horn-sound treatments (recalling Jajouka) were quite nice and interesting, otherwise I found Tomutonttu boring and uninventive. Probably I just didn’t get it, as they say.

But the definition of boring was yet to come. The Skaters, who came to replace Black Dice, were an all new acquaintance for me. They created a wall… sorry, not a wall but rather a shoddy fence, of monotonous lo-fi noise lacking any stimulating moments of change, neither was the sound itself in any way enjoyable. With all the lights out you couldn’t even entertain yourself by watching what they’re doing. What a waste. A good thing is they kept the set short.

Next up – Prurient. The atmosphere was instantly electrified with a simple stage set of a small table on which a line of pedals and other gadgets were waiting for the artist, and a single spotlight illuminating the centre of the stage. Then the man arrived and delivered probably the best “power-electronics” set I’ve ever witnessed. Devoid of the rather sad macho bullshit typical for the genre, Prurient appeared more honest, personal and pure. His vocal delivery (from which I admittedly didn’t decipher a word) was anguished for sure. And most of all, the sound and his stage presence were incredibly powerful! A great show, where the artist didn’t spare a drop of sweat, spit of vital energy.

Islaja was the last to perform that night. Coming on stage with a rather typical folk-rock line-up of drums, bass, guitar, keys (rather untypical for her, I hear), they sounded like a rather typical folk-rock band, sad enough. Islaja has a nice voice, though. She was advertised along the lines of “psychedelic folk rock” or something, but I had a hard time trying to find anything psychedelic about her music or performance.

Kiasma Theatre, Sunday

Frederique Devaux’ films were amazing. Cut-up film and images, fantastic textures, colourful, changing rapidly and apparently tickling the creative centre of my brain – so much so that I was practically oozing of ideas about what to do with some unfinished stuff I’ve been working on (so, nothing actually related to any of the films shown, just general inspiration and enthusiasm). In the beginning the sound was not that impressive, whistling and and whatnot, but later on it changed to a kind of plunder/cut-up music that worked great with the visuals. Excellent.

Lee Ranaldo & Leah Singer. The theatre was packed again to the last seat and more. Never got into Sonic Youth, nor heard much mr. Ranaldo’s other works (nor Leah Singer’s for what’s that worth), so I approached the performance (called Drift) with neutral curiosity. We were treated with more than an hour of very American spoken word poetry and imagery, with mostly guitar & feedback based droney, reverberated soundscapes. I could’ve enjoyed it more without the spoken parts (not to mention the 9/11 reference that I think produced a silent “oh come on” through the audience…) that often seemed somehow too loud and out of place. Anyway, Drift provided a nice, relaxed, enjoyable conclusion to a most enjoyable festival. An additional afterglow was due to the excellent dinner (onion soup, goatcheese salad, red wine) at a Czech restaurant Vltava nearby… recommended!

All in all it turned out to be a perfect weekend to get out of your local surroundings and spend time only by watching films, going to concerts, meeting people and eating well. Great thanks to the host and the company, and hello again to the numerous friends who I met and who by some weird chance might be reading this. So full of new energy and inspiration it took me quite some time to actually sit down and write this stuff down.

Off to other things now, there’s plenty of music and album covers to finish…

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…and who am I to deny that pleasure from Her?

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