EKTROVERDE

Music for Supermarket works as a conceptual piece, cf. its title, but not as something you'd put on for enjoyable musical experience.

The music here is simple and repetitive very much in the vein of Can and Neu. Drums (sometimes combined with electronic percussion and/or drum machine) and bass create a more or less motorik groove. Tasteful guitars, plenty of keyboards and the odd sound effect, synth or field recording bit here and there are added on top of it. The second track "Puuttuva" ("missing") takes a detour via Canterbury with its nimble bass riff and jazzy electric piano. In fact a lot of the keyboards have Canterbury vibe on other tracks as well. Sound is excellent throughout and production gives plenty of space for all instruments. There's a good feeling all through the album, the kind of warm summer night ambience.

The album starts really good, but due to repetitive music, it gets slightly boring towards the end even though it's under 40 minutes long. Still, I won't hesitate to recommend this to fans of the mentioned Can and Neu, as well as those interested in Finnish experimental music underground.

As I'm originally writing this on paper, I don't remember the PA subgenre and can only guess what it might be. Jazz Rock / Fusion? Maybe too repetitive for that. And surely too accessible for RIO. Krautrock, then? Or perhaps Psychedelic / Space Rock, like CIRCLE? (So, it was that one, even though it actually doesn't say much about the nature of this music.)

The six tracks of this album would be hard to describe individually without repeating oneself. They may be very similar in style to each other, but as they sound so good, the whole album stays fairly enjoyable and fresh all the way. Sometimes the sound partly approaches Electronic Music, but the organic groove and rhythm never fails.

I was prepared not to like this music at all (even the cover design, a duller cousin to the cover of FAUST IV, is very untempting). I was happily surprised.

The two shorter impressions lasting about ten minutes apiece start with "Kapituli" ("Chapter" in context of church administration), echoes residing still in more mechanical tonal idioms, sharp and hasty drums drawing together spacey guitars and more analogic presence of saxophone, round toned bass guitar and short visitations of vocals. A lighter and more jazzy ethereal improvisation of another Circle brotherhood band Plain Ride might be a comparative reference for this grooving aural warm-up voyaging. "Paholaispiirtäjä" ("Devilscraper"...?) creates interesting harmonics from multiple chord layers, reminding US late 60's garage rock blasts with streetwise lyric reciting. One-key based persistent sonic monolith leads to fine solos from saxophone, dualistic calls from acid treated guitar and funky waving bass lines.

The core moments of the album reside in my opinion on the two longer epic visions, rising calmly from "Kaski", the smokes from burned out forestlands providing fertile cultivation soil for crops. Gentle guitar picks tremble on their start-up positions, reverb delays crafting space for experience of vastness, supported by saxophone's calm lines. Serene floating upon the desolate ashen lands waiting for growth of new harvest gains intensity through respectable patience from the musicians, vocals and the first high peak on the intensity being reached around the fourteenth minute of this first of the two nearly twenty-seven minutes long tidal waves. After the vocal verse more chaotic touches on the guitar are allowed, and the rolling pace slightly escalates, concluding to climax of power on another rise upon the steps of instrumental monotonic grinding.

The last entity is called Lightning, the natural phenomena burning the forests away without intervention of an ape trying to dominate the biosphere. Drums open the track casually, pleasant shimmering guitars entering to sensual dance towards the center of the void. Prophetic voice screams from the distance, preaching with ancient sounding Finnish, declaring the reciter as the God of Lightning. Musically this second colossus evolves really pleasantly, and in my opinion the album gains further quality and power with each track. Some sort of thunderstorm escalation moment occurs around twelfth minutes, the drum battering growing very fiery, and guitars join for the massive catharsis of tension release after nearly one hour buildup. The final moments of this sonic voyage fades interestingly behind some sort of a layer, emphasizing the power being transmitted from another distant source than the clearer major part of the album. This layer starts to grow thicker like a dense carpet of rain, and slowly washes the music away, giving a convincing final touch for the energy and innovation of this minimalist archaic record.

I have been thinking about the different group incarnations of Circle; Pharaoh Overlord and Ektroverde, both starting to create music resembling the motives of Circle, but approaching the subject from slightly different viewpoints. Often the following recordings start to morph from style of their starting point, reflecting the inner dynamics of these band projects. I believe this is a signal of musical sincerity and courage to follow the directions rising from the psyche of musical collective's expressional needs. From the listener's perspective if one is not totally open to all regions of the musician's aesthetical ideas, purchasing albums blindly may cause disappointments. From Ektroverde albums this has so far been the most pleasing, leaning to more earthbound themes and rock-oriented hypnotisms. A very recommendable album for anybody open to such music.

Thirteen musicians are involved here more or less, mainly deriving from the huge Circle (Ektro) society and also featuring Mika Rintala (Verde). The album sounds like recorded on the fly, don't know if any overdubs were made. All the instruments, especially the saxophones, are swirling around somehow, animated by ... well, I'm not able to spot ... who serves the structure? Who defines the direction, where to float? Some aspects on the shorter expeditions Kapituli and Paholaispiirtäjä remind me of Hungarian band Korai Öröm playing live - the vocals, the jazzy groove. Both songs are faded out by the way.

The drawn-out Kaski is provided with more hypnotically floating krautrock essence, build up around a repetitive motif, as for that coming with references close to the Yeti jamming Amon Düül 2. Salama follows with emphasized vocals by Mika Rättö - no, shouting recitative meets it better, there's some aggressive vibe definitely, in order to start the engines of course. Furthermore this track is focussed on soaring spacey guitars respectively synths, lively bass and drums - a gripping cosmic odyssey par excellence.

Did they fail the return to mother earth or not? They leave the question unanswered. One word - inspired! An album which pleases me much. I like the approach to let the songs evolve without boundings, their abilities to interact, the joy of playing, the excellent musicianship. Nearly perfect (though - strictly speaking - currently I'm not able to formulate what completely perfect really means to me). 'Ukkossalama' is a highly recommended affair bult around kraut, jazz and space ingredients - 4.5 stars.