If you fit into any or all of those descriptions, then Sami Sänpäkkilä, the mastermind behind Kaikkeuden kauneus ja käsittämättömyys, knows how you feel. I’ve never been to Finland in the winter, but from what I’ve heard, it sounds like a haven for the sad, the depressed, the insomniacs, the strayed, the fearful and the lonely. In fact it seems that everywhere north of Copenhagen is. You can pretty much guess how dark or ‘glacial’ an album is going to be just by finding its point of origin on a map. Maybe it’s so cold up there that the reverb knob is permanently frozen at 10?
Es, which stands for ‘Experimental Songcycles’, has left the strictly experimental style of previous works behind (his last album being made entirely on four record players bought from thrift stores) and moved onto a more thoughtfully structured ambience. Because the tracks are perfectly timed, details that might have otherwise been overlooked by waning attention spans can be fully appreciated. It’s like ambience for the masses!
Somewhere between Philip Jeck and Sigur Ros (at their most ambient), Es’ music is largely based on a natural harmony. Intentionally or otherwise, the album seems to be structurally based on the arctic seasons – mostly enveloped in darkness, but with a brief burst of warmth and sunshine somewhere in the middle.
After a short, reverb-drenched a Capella introduction, “Hamuavia” begins, plodding eerily along a frozen road in the darkness of the Finnish winter. Ambient hissing, distant piano plucks and distorted bass thuds melt into croakily feminine monastic chants. Summer eventually arrives in the form of looped bass lines and twinkling keys that melt the snow. The sun comes out, birds sing, bells ring and the ocean laps quietly, only to be swallowed up by darkness again that takes the album to its close.
Kaikkeuden kauneus ja käsittämättömyys translates quite beautifully into ‘The Beauty and Inconceivability of Everythingness’ and that’s a perfectly descriptive title for this fantastic album. What more can you ask for?
