In the Sasu Ripatti oeuvre, this savagely deep album stands as a hallmark of the producer's virtuosity. Enraptured by his latest album under this moniker, Whistleblower, I take special delight in returning to his long out-of-print Chain Reaction classic and reconnecting with the artist during his rise to infamy.
Back in the day when so-called "glitch" music was touching the lives of so many music geeks and techno snobs, Ripatti found himself a producer in demand. At least, that's what his discography implies. Though not unknown upon of the original release of Multila, the year 2000 transformed him into an underground superstar. In that year alone, Ripatti released four albums under three different pseudonyms, acquiring new converts from various and sometimes overlapping factions of the electronic music scene. He revolutionized soul with the deep, blissed-out microhouse of Luomo's Vocalcity and added nuance to rhythm on Uusitalo's technoid headtrip Vapaa Muurari Live. Furthermore, Ripatti offered two albums as Vladislav Delay, one being this absolutely incredible album, which he has just reissued officially on his own Huume vanity label.
Choosing to stick with the original mastering job by Moritz Von Oswald, whose aforementioned Chain Reaction imprint first released this gem, Ripatti has given us a second chance to own and enjoy Multila as it was originally intended, inadvertently opposing the musicological revisionism we've all grown so accustomed to. From the rippling subspace ambience that initiates album opener "Ranta," it's hard for me not to recall when these sounds were still so unusual and ultramodern. Though certainly neither the first nor the only artist piecing together riddles of these abstract spaces between dub and techno, Ripatti explored and achieved a fantastic balance between process-driven sound design and inspirational accessibility in his initial work. No track better embodies that sonic dichotomy than the breathtaking "Huone," an aural epic of Homeric proportions. Not exactly a dance track by authoritarian standards, this 22 minute odyssey suppresses its untiring 4/4 beat foundation by varying degrees throughout, creating an unhinged type of post-traumatic techno.
Instead of depending on the overt crackling static and digital hiccups that made clicks and cuts contemporaries like Pole and Oval so popular, Ripatti dug deeper and discovered sounds whose origins are unknown and recondite. "Viite" sizzles and churns amidst its phantasmagorical climate, while the subsequent "Karha" plays like a gloriously recovered hymn drowned in tape damage—the latter in particular stands now in harsh contrast against the bright, clearer style that defines Whistleblower. The delicate coda "Nesso" signifies a luminous end to this venture, its radiant trebly textures slicing through the bass heavy atmosphere. Needless to say at this point, Multila is a fundamental document of modern electronic music that was well worth reissuing. Let's hope that this marks the beginning of a more comprehensive reissue program of Ripatti's catalog.
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