Hi,
here's something I got from the latest NME, printed without permission,
so I hope no one sues me :) Hope you enjoy it.
ERkki
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From the NME 10 December 1994
FINNS AIN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE
by Rupert Howe
Guesting recently at London's techno-ambient all-nighter Quirky, the team
behind Finnish label SAHKO RECORDINGS managed to blow the grimy club's power
halfway through a set of the weirdest electronica this side of Scandinavia.
It wasn't planned, but it suited the occasion perfectly.
Sahko is all about the unexpected and unconventional. They release records in
unmarked silver sleeves, full of tiny drilled holes, and hide CDs away in
fiddly cardboard envelopes. They are one of those outfits that thrives on
making people try and figure out what they're up to next.
It could be the eerie, minimal techno constructions of Mika Vainio, known
simply as O (with a slash inside it), or the lounge-bar easy-listening
soundtracks of the fabulous Jimi Tenor (check his truly amazing 'Sahkomies'
LP).
"Sahko can put out anything really", says label boss Tommi Gronlund. "Not
only techno, not only experimental, anything interesting... We don't really
know yet where we are going."
During the day, Tommi works with a couple of friends as an architect.
"Actually, we don't build very much," he confesses. "We make exhibitions
and installations. That kind of thing." But he still considers himself
"more an architect than a label owner".
It was the music of Mika Vainio that inspired him to set up the label in
the first place; that and the realisation that nobody else in Finland was
interested in putting out experimental electronic music. Working through
the 80's on everything from industrial noise to speed metal, the sparse
sonic landscape of Vainio's recent album 'Metri' (which contains almost as
much silence as its does actual music), shows a unique approach to the
techno craft.
"I just thought they were so much better than some other records I buy
when I go abroad," says Tommi of his tracks. Then, realising that that
might sound too arrogant, he adds, "Or, not better, but different."
Yet at home, Sahko have faced a mountain of Scandinavian indiffererence.
"We are nobodies in Finland," says Tommi. "Nobody knows us. We sell maybe
20 records to our friends and we export everything else."
The records they have exported so far, though, have ended up in the right
places, winning recognition and respect from the likes of Ritchie Hawtin,
Mixmaster Morris and Mike Paradinas of Mu-Ziq, all of whom were at the Vox
to witness their circuit-blowing set. With a distribution deal for the UK
and releases in the pipeline from artists as far afield as New York and
Vienna, Sahko could make an impact on the global techno scene way beyond
their size.
Except that when Tommi says he wants the whole thing to stay small and
centred, allowing him to lavish the same degree of care over every release,
you get the sense he won't be giving up the day job just yet.
(Tracks by O appear on the Pi compilation 'Out There' - A Thread Through
Time'. Other forthcoming releases, to be distributed through Plastikhead,
include EPs by Kirlian and SIL Electronics.)