I don't really give a damn about psychedelic free association or extended mind jams. Typically all any of that adds up to is a mess of strange guitar solos and warped sounds bouncing of each other, all in an attempt to sound like a German group from the 70s. Luckily the Finnish employ that nasty word in a completely different manner and, in the case of Lumottu Karkkipurkki, the music is closer to bizarre, alienating sound collages than anything produced in the '70s with a guitar and acid.
Fonal
The title translates as "The Enchanted Candy Jar (Free System)" according to the Fonal website and, though it wasn't picked up by a hip label, stands up well against the Kellari Juniversumi album also released last year. The format of the album is roughly the same as the one used on that album. Many of the songs are anywhere from two to four minutes and are free standing collages of broken or poorly tuned instruments, toys, analog sounds, and kitchen sinks (who knows exactly what the band used to put this all together). It was originally released in 2001 as a double 8" lathe cut picture disc and is most likely impossible to find in that enticing format. Luckily Fonal has decided to re-release it so that I can sit in my chair uncomfortably and twitch to the music provided.
The title comes from a Finnish book of children's stories and details that travels of a child who has a magical candy jar. Every time he takes a different candy from the jar, his surroundings change. Aside from the drug connotations that can be read into this story, the idea is intriguing enough and works well with the aforementioned format. Each track stands separate from all of the others, united only by their amorphous construction and lack of any recognizable melody. Kemialliset Ystävät adhere to strictly textural principles in the production of their songs, allowing for static, reversed keyboards, tumbling acoustic guitars, electric chicanery, and other random sources to assault the stereo at will. I can only presume that these songs must represent, in some way, a child's adventures with the candy.
If this all sounds a bit messy, that's because it is, but that's also where Lumottu Karkkipurkki gets all its charm. All the sounds are genuinely alien, demonstrating the group's ability to create unique worlds within a small period of time and with an obviously explosive imagination. The album sounds best when a series of short, deliberately chaotic pieces follow each other immediately, such as the series from "Puttos" (track 10) to "Systeemi 4" (track 13). The sudden changes in sound sources causes immediate mood shifts, throwing me off balance and out of sorts every time I listen to it. The monotone, often bleak passages on the album are the most interesting: Thomas Ligotti, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft and others come immediately to mind every time I hear them. Their black souls are hidden behind other song's more playful attitudes, but the plucked guitars and their twisted melodies can only inspire pictures of desolate landscapes and hazy figures, too frightful to imagine, wandering in the distance.
All this makes Kemialliset Ystävät far more interesting than many of their contemporaries, all of whom seem to be interested in forging a new and strange "folk" movement. I'm not sure exactly how Kemialliset Ystävät got mixed up in the category to begin with. Kemialliset Ystävät are far more modern, using technology both old and new to forge horror stories and plays out of sound instead of words or sets. The outlets that have covered Fonal and especially this band seem to want to place the band in a musical phenomenon that it has nothing to do with. If there is anything folk-like about the band, it comes from the background, in the inspiration the band draws from in making their records. Tribal, peace, love, and happiness-derived free rock this is not. Thankfully this group delivers more than most of that pretend intellectual or spiritual crap.
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