Ø (Mika Vainio) - Metri

Ø - Metri
(Sähkö, 1994)

If you don’t know, the very first few Sähkö releases stand out as being prime examples of some of the most warped, weird, head scrambling awesome abstract electronic music ever made. Hitting on electro flavoured downtempo, acid techno minimalism and bass heavy speaker breakers. From 1994 “Metri” was the first album (then CD only, amazingly this is the first time these tracks have been put on vinyl) for Sähkö from Mika Vainio after those (now hellishly rare) hand drilled 12"s with silver foil rapped sleeves (visually a massive influence on Fat Cat's Split series). “Sisään” is just like early Autechre, fusing massive 808 beats with dope beat programming and an isolationist feel deep. “Twin Bleeps” is truly deranged -if Steve Reich ever dropped a pure acid house track then we could only ever dream it would sound this good-. “Kuvio” is sick bleep techno with an outrageous bassline and lowdown cold drone harmonics. “Lasi” drop's sub acid chords in a major classic detroit techno vain. “Hornitus” is another sick minimal cold dark nights techno mix weapon and “Muumtaja” pounds away relentlessly with electro thud's and thunderous hard dub basslines. Finally “Hion” repeats the technique's of “Sisään” and “Radio” win's the major prize as a growling heavy bassdrone piece ala Parmentier (if you follow that link then major respect) kicking off with half heard radio static and then progressively getting heavier and heavier (sparks metaphorically flying from the stylus as it wrestles with the bass vibrations) as this album rolls towards it's conclusion. They don’t make records like this anymore and thankfully so as we'd need hospital treatment on permanent rotation to keep our heart rate down... In addition to the already essential vinyl edition the CD takes you further into the beatless ambience of “Radio” with “Asuntola”, “Kentta”, “Halli” and “Dayak”. Minimal evolving echoic tone patterns (like a modern Morton Feldman), ghostlike thunderous static/ambience to snap your speaker cones (spookier than when you first watched 'The Evil Dead' or 'Dr.Who' :), what sounds like water droplets in dub and “Dayak” a killer soundtrack piece. An outright classic. Boomkat.

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