Sound Colour Vibration (Music | Art | Film | Technology | Science | Culture)

Olli Aarni, a newly arrived Finnish modern experimental composer, has been an enigma in my experience towards sound in the last few months. Australia’s Preservation label sent us one of the latest releases in their catalog and the first release under Olli’s moniker Nuojuva, Valot Kaukaa and it is one of the most breath taking albums I have ever heard. After the first first piece,  I had already gained a huge sense of respect for this artist and a level of intrigue that I had not felt in awhile towards an artist who was new to my path. listen after listen of Valot Kuakka and it has proven to be one of most strident, beauty filled and impression giving records of the year for myself. Nuojuva is a highly skilled multi-instrumentalist that specializes in a marvelous display of tape loops, synth and other sonically blissful derivates. Every song on the album results atmospheric pallets that enter into a gateway of ascendance that is remarkable and inspiring once the communion of harmony and texture become one. This is music that enters into body and flourishes wildly through the soul, leaving corridors of emotions to experience in a new way upon every encounter. Only nine songs in length, Valot Kaukaa is a statement that lasts 60+ minutes and is filled with sounds that come in the form of dreamy, sun soaked cascades of blanketed and glistening clouds that ride over mountainous textures that fold into nothingness.

Valot Kaukaa is a record that Nuojuva has crafted with pillars of detail that lives in a nomadic never ending direction. Contortion of synthetic and fluid like melody constantly drifts in and out like the most vivid waking dream. Lucid and evocative in texture, Valot Kaukaa plays on a bright and delightful touch that embraces the power of space more so than a convulsing and shocking bridge of notes. The addition of 78″ rpm dusty vinyl cracks, violin, cello, piano and other stringed instrumentation moves this music out of the clouds and back towards the earth. There is an angelic remembrance surfaces with on every piece that represents the lush landscapes that can be micro analyzed in nature. There is a reach towards something unobtainable in current time, an ancient mystic drawing of the beauty that has been able to still exist here from the millions of years that span this worlds history.

From the indescribable to the mundane, the natural world has a way of providing an infinite scope of colors and Valot Kaukaa brings out this garden of realities song by song, moment by moment. There is a sense of divergence and separation of the cosmos and the earth in dual time, both having representation constantly. Vocalist Rachel Evans and pianist Sophie Hutchings are the guests on this record and they bring this record to a stunning height. They slide the record to areas of sound that leave the album hard to define under any one of  era of music. This bridging of all three musicians and their respective talents achieves the euphoria that makes this album timeless. Heavily processed in effects, Rachel Evans’ vocal techniques are given the full 3-d scope on the mix for Valot Kaukaa, always moving in patterns untraceable yet always discernible that movement is occurring. Sophie’s piano lines become a constant placement of foundation while many of the tones fluctuate and phase towards very intricate traces of sound around her piano work. A sense of the chamber and classical worlds pokes its head out from the hands of Sophie, flowing gently back into the crackling and dusty mist of the swirling tones that pervade the entire album. Valot Kaukaa is designed from beginning to end as a continuous and growing pulse of light that centers around a drifting hopelessness to be found that creates bursts of locomotion. Every song falls under something heavier than last, shattering every emotion present into the deep despair and resolve of the darkest of nights and back into the expansive evocation of growth.

Preservation has very active since 2009 and with the release of Valot Kaukaa and a new LP by UK recording artist Greg Haines this year, it feels like 2012 will be a very active and mind blowing year for the label. Nuojuva’s Valot Kaukaa is as an important record right now, one that shows an ancient grace and futuristic bliss. A record that is ego-less in heart and shines with so much beauty in design, a pairing of aesthetics and pure love. Nuojuva’s Valot Kaukaa is a record that mimics the inner workings of life itself and the outer extensions of the human being the next generations can become. Piano, flute, accordion, synth, violin, tape loops, cello and more, Valot Kaukaa is an album that leaves me speechless time after time and will be in my life forever. Highly recommended at Sound Colour Vibration.

-Erik Otis

Nuojuva
Valot Kaukaa

1. Hämärään
2. Pihlajan varjoissa
3. Kaipaa
4. Ahovieret
5. Kuu piirtää sillan
6. Laakso
7. Kesäyössä
8. Huominen
9. Kajastus

Buy this album from Preservation Records

Laakso by Nuojuva (Preservation)