::: Pineapple Circle
::: Distant Adrifting Circles
::: Function/Mezcaline Records (Finland)
::: FU-501
::: 1996
::: 1. Adrifting
::: 2. A Better Thought
::: 3. Exocarp
::: 4. Classic Juice
::: 5. Sliced Circles
::: 6. X-Mass
::: 7. Pineapple Crush
::: 8. Trip To Another (featuring MC Maniac James)
::: 9. A Little Faith
::: All pineapples sliced by J. Kaartinen & A. Sallinen.
Pineapple Circle's first album, like B12's 'Time Tourist', sounds both
pleasantly old-fashioned and ageless at the same time. Not quite like
Sahko's stylus-stuck-in-a-lonely-groove ultra-minimalism, and more
electroish than Aural Expansion's serene soundscapes, Pineapple Circle
treads that tender path between ambientish listening techno and the
good old style electro - tracing the very word both to its early 80's
European and NY incarnations - preaching their electronic sermon for
those who want their techno wrapped in nice melodies (TM) and soothing
electronics of that last decade gone by.
Whereas Jimi Tenor looks hopefully in the direction of the leaping
Barry White cocktail lounge lizards, Pineapple Circle seems to get
their inspiration from those early Eighties synth futurists, a la
Depeche Mode circa '83 and that ilk (though fear not - even that said,
Pineapple Circle is more 'Clear' than Gary Numan); 'Sliced Circles'
even reminiscing the haunting, mysterious chanson melody of Grace
Jones' 'Libertango (I've Seen That Face Before)' thrown together with
some pre-'Stripped' Mode pictoresque hummability and alongside a soft,
steady 808 beat. In all their quirkiness, Black Dog never managed to
sound so unashamedly nostalgic like this; although with our tropical
flavour-drenched duo the taste is untaintedly fresh in all its
memory-evoking familiarity. Why, that's a melancholic little melody
so much favoured by the Finnish popular music thriving in the shadow
of our (believe it or not) soft-hearted Slavic cousins.
One of the hardest things in this world is to write a memorable
original song using only the sparse colours of that technological
palette at disposal of an average electronic musician - and even in
the light of their obvious promise, one gets sporadically the feeling
that some of Pineapple Circle's tunes need a bit of fleshing out, but
as a hope-raising debut 'Distant Adrifting Circles' works just
beautifully. Well, there's maybe a compulsory trendy t**p f**k tune
like "Trip To Another", featuring one MC Maniac James, sounding a
little bit too obvious and run-of-the-mill by now, and somehow out of
the place too (is that a mutated drum loop of Funkadelic's 'I'll Bet
You' I keep hearing...?) - but everyone must have their growing pains.
The sleeve jacket design by Harri and Aslak - a stylized crayon
pineapple can with a hue of yellow and Underworld/Tomato black & white
font lettering inside - is worth a mention, being refreshingly different
from all your usual computer-generated "Day-Glo androids tripping in
cyberspace" fare. Anyway, with some good luck, Pineapple Circle may in
time prove themselves to be IDM's best kept little secret.
***
contact:
function c/o mezcaline records
p.o. box 212
00181 helsinki
finland
fax +358 0 69 44 662
e-mail: mez23@spinefarm.fi
---
ERkki
TampHexster, pHinland
trerra@uta.fi