"They bestride the Earth." John Peel said that once on his old BBC World Service show to introduce a Fall song and as a vague reference to how he would often stretch his own programming rules in their case. I feel the same way about Mika Vainio. Unfair preferential treatment is in order and a new release must be celebrated. Vainio's recorded works have been in the areas of techno (as √ò, Philus), installations (Onko), out electro-rock (Pan Sonic and Endless), and finally soundscapes, which is where In The Land belongs together with Kajo and Ydin. In this context and that of nineties and naughties electronica, In The Land is hardly radical but it is exceptional.
Vanio's work has a quality and coloring that is uniquely seductive and the finesse with which he applies his personal voice to a variety of tasks sets him apart. For example, the very short opener 'Sunder Here, Sailor' is a vicious attack of animal and machine noise that, without diminishing its power, has a watery metallic sheen that makes the meaning ambiguous and defies to be labeled as noise. Throughout the album Vainio combines familiar material with the alien, and friendly production with the downright disconcerting so as to keep both the soundtrack to the imagined movie dynamic and its narrative interesting. The only lulling you'll find here is temporary. But ultimately what overwhelms is the music's sheer melancholic beauty. 'The Colour of Plants', of plain and simple construction, just a handful of throbbing drones and pure tones, sings of the deep yearning for and impossibility of transcending our deadening corporeality. 'Snowblind' returns to a favorite resource of Vainio—amplified hum. At only six minutes long it develops a into monumental resonant chord with depth and emotion worthy of its drone music heritage (see the Charlamaine Palestine review in this edition). One more important difference between Vainio and many of his colleagues in electronic music is his commitment to what's known in the wine industry as low-yield—the notion that one cannot allow a vine to produce copious fruit without diluting the wine and that to make a concentrated wine, the vine's vigor and productivity must be either naturally or artificially curtailed. As numerous artists have demonstrated, electronic music is very easy to make and the whish-washy results of high-yield methods are abundant. In contrast, Vanio's stance seems almost defiant. -
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