Kemialliset Ystävät I Siipi Empii LP

Kemialliset Ystävät is a long running musical collective headed by
Finnish multimedia artist Jan Anderzén. The groups rotating
contributors include virtuosic musicians, sound artists, mad
electronic music professors, field recorders, singers, amateurs and
professionals. Ikuisuus presents the projects latest LP,
entitled Siipi Empii (loosely translated from Finnish to A Wing
Hesitates.) Anderzén explains, "The English translation
unfortunately loses all the music and rhyme of the Finnish title but
the meanings still there, kind of. The title is aiming to describe
the movements of a butterfly and the weight/heat of the idea that
every single flap of the wing can cause a storm/revolution." He has
described the groups sound as sometimes "like an orchestra flying
around in a tornado." These themes embody Siipi Empii, a wildly
weird dose of electronic folk music crafted through sheer force of
nature, an abstract organism guided gently by Anderzéns deft
artistic touch.

Siipi Empii's compelling arrangements do contain a playful edge
that softens its more experimental tendencies. Unpredicability is
the order of the day, as dogs bark, springs boing, and electronic
woodwind sections deconstruct themselves over beds of contemplative
marimbas. Disembodied voices recite touching poetry, just more
instruments playing freely in the endlessly mutating stream of
sound. Every element feels perfectly weighed and expertly arranged,
as if by gravity itself. Anderzén says: "Battles with gravity are a
recurring theme in my work, something to do with changing
perceptions of normal." Siipi Empii is a joyous and playful
paradox, beckoning you to embrace its loopy strain of intensely
original expression.