Just when find my mind completely clouded about how to start this review, I see the opening lines of the label's presentation of this collaboration project, and that misty cloud dissipates with the idea to simply reproduce that text...so here it comes!
“Forget what you know about the Seattle-area based sound-art project Mamiffer and the Finnish Hypno Rock institution Circle! Enharmonic Intervals (For Paschen Organ), the first in a proposed series of joint efforts involving these parties, contains few of the musical hallmarks one might associate with either performer. The comforts of austere piano sketches and solemn nocturnes are largely absent, the wallop of repetitive rhythms and Metallic kitch is nowhere to be found. It's as if an unseen hand has erased the auditory signatures of each group, and left behind only impressions, embers, filaments, and shadows”! The “guilty party” is the Paschen organ of the nineteenth century stone church, known as Keski-Porin Kirkko, situated in the middle of Circle's hometown, which was used as the atmospheric/ Ambient basis for the recordings (done in one day).
Oh, I guess this is as good a moment as any, to clear the air about the Circle bandname. As mentioned in the review of the Falcon (ex-Circle) single (posted a while ago – check it out for yourselves), Circle's main man Jussi Lehtisalo “licenced” the Circle name and sound for a year to a completely different bunch of musicians, who were announced to record an album to be released late this very year. The original Circle members would go on as Falcon (ex-Circle), but still also perform under their original bandname. Enough to find the eyes boggling, and I therefore surmised that the whole thing might be a joke, remember? Well, the truth is that there IS a Circle album, recorded by different musicians, available at this very moment, and a full-length by Falcon (ex-Circle) was released at the same time (reviews will follow shortly, once I get through the seemingly insurmountable of other albums which have priority). To make for even bigger confusion, the brand name Circle is hereby used by original Circle members Jussi Lehtisalo and Mika Rättö. For those not in the know, Mamiffer is the project started by Aaron Turner and his wife Faith Coloccia, project for which he also started the Sige Records imprint in March of 2011.
Well now, back to the music these protagonists put together, each of 'em not only handling the organ in turn, but also in turn doin' some kind of vocal, and coming in with additional instrumentation used in in not too common ways. Oh freaky...why don't I just revert back to the label's text (in actuality a well-written to-the-point review done by one Jordan N. Mamone – credit where credit's due...good job man!), seen as they explain everything so well? No? Yes? Okay then... “Caressed by...” (names of the foursome mentioned above) “...the house of worship's immense Paschen organ sets a liturgical, contemplative mood, which persists unabated through a cycle of improvisations and short compositions. The album opens and closes with slowly building sinfoniettas of sustained drone and flattening feedback that shine heavenly light onto the wan, academic corpse of avant-garde minimalism. In the middle, all sorts of hell breaks loose: Coloccia chants wordless omens on a distant shore, Turner shouts his lungs out, Lethisalo speaks in tongues from atop synthesized snowbanks, Rättö gargles operatic gibberish, hummingbird guitars flutter past, and delicate chords listen like dewdrops on Arctic lichen. Much of this earthly ruckus tems from additional sessions spent brainstorming, fine-tuning, cooking, and stoking the sauna at the Lehtisalo family cottage, deep in rural Finland. (A couple of months later, via the miracle of technology, Eyvind Kang tacked a spot of viola while visiting Turner and Coloccia at their Washington state abobe)”
Time for you to actually experience some of the project's tunes, right, so just surf on towards (www.) ektrorecords.com, and skroll down the page until you come to the project's bit (whence the texts above were culled) to get yourself a 3-minute sample of the album's opening track “Kaksonen 1”. It's not a lot, I agree, and personally I've always listened to this album (which I've listened to for at least 10 times or so in the past week – mind you, if to you that don't seem like much, that I've had to review several other album at the same time!) as a whole, experiencing it as one single piece with changing moods. A wonderful piece of work, which indeed deserves its place in my year-lists without prior nomination! Vinyl freaks (I use the term freak with endearment, as I belong to that same group of people) will be happy to find that the 43-minute album (except in CD version, issued by Ektro) is also available on a double 12-inch platter!