Sala-Arhimo
Islaja (Fonal) side-man and frequent tour-mate with Larkin Grimm (Secret Eye), Sala-Arhimo's debut oozes a slow psychedelic radiance from a half-frozen world of hibernation. A bit of ancient Pink Floyd as reference point, perhaps some of the jazz-like moments of Faust's more gentle side, but here all comparisons end.
"The Finns are back again and thank goodness, we were
starting to worry that their productivity was waning. This time Islaja
collaborator Sala-Arhimo is the focus of our wandering eyes and shock horror,
the album isn’t on Fonal! Some of you may have already bumped into the Last
Visible Dog label, only a few months ago they released a rather spectacular 6 cd
boxset which has become some sort of audio bible for the pscyh-folk scene, so
it’s hardly surprising that they have looked to the frozen snowscapes of Finland
for fresh talent. Sala-Arhimo’s debut is no disappointment either, taking cues
from Islaja he has crafted a lo-fi folk gem – everything you would expect is
present and correct; Finnish vocals, glockenspiels, acoustic guitars and
other-worldly melodica sounds, but it’s the composition that sets Sala-Arhimo
apart from his peers. The songs are constructed so beautifully that they rise
above the competition effortlessly, ‘Turilas Ruusussa’ is an ethereal guitar and
saxophone led instrumental track and distils the album’s strengths, and
‘Talviunta’ is a vocal led campfire jaunt which makes me feel warm just writing
about it. This album is bound to appeal to fans of the last Es album, or any of
the less esoteric releases on the Fonal label and even the wyrd pop of the
Animal Collective – a very promising debut."
--Boomkat Music
"This self-titled album is the first solo CD by Finland's
Jukka Raisanen, a member of Islaja. On these 11 songs he plays a host of
instruments, including guitar, sax, flute, keyboards, percussion, melodica and
harmonica (not to mention his vocals, which make an appearance on about half of
the songs).
Listening to the CD, I kept returning to adjectives like ghostly, frail, eerie.
These songs are like fragments of a slow, scary movie – not today's fast-moving
slasher flicks, but films like Legend of Hell House where it was about
the suspense, not the blood. In the same way, these songs are about suspense and
atmosphere – nothing flashy, just a careful balance between beauty and
melancholy.
Sala-Arhimo is about songs, make no mistake. Many practitioners of this type of
music today collect a few layers of sound and call it a song, and Raisanen does
that occasionally on this CD; "Turilas ruusussa" is an example, an instrumental
piece that's just sax notes over a repeated guitar motif that lacks the
direction of the best songs here. Similarly, some of the songs lose their thread
partway through and devolve into mere collections of sounds.
More often, though, we get complete visions, from the opening "Onnellisten saari"
– a very pretty little melody, perhaps melodica or even harmonica, over a steady
plucked guitar – to the closing "Luominen jatkuu," an oddly pretty song given
its deep drone and chittering electronics. It's primarily the vocals that give
it a hint of beauty amidst the eerie ambence. In any case, the song is a nice,
creepy ending for the album.
Among the others, the melancholy "Muotoja taivaalla" is very successful; simple
acoustic guitar picking and gently rattling percussion with an appealing
singsong vocal. The wheezy organ breaks fit in perfectly. Of all of the pieces,
"Talviunta" feels much like a Six Organs of Admittance song; the vocals are a
bit similar, and the song's based around the voice, a repeating guitar melody,
and occasional chiming bells. It's one of the prettier pieces here.
I'll be looking forward to more from Sala-Arhimo, to see how he evolves his
peculiar vision of songwriting. In the meantime, this album will be receiving
quite a few late evening spins around here."
--Dusted Reviews
This is another one of those 'you need to hear it, but there's no way to get it' Finnish geniuses whose music shares much affinity with the Lal lal lal crowd (Kemialliset Ystavat, Avarus, etc.), but focuses less on the purely experimental, and more on rich, melodic drones and voice.