[Echochord]

Here’s a fun surprise: right after I reviewed the Vladislav Delay Quartet LP a couple weeks ago, a brand new Vladislav Delay 12″ appears on Boomkat and Hardwax. Adding to the surprises is a remix from Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer, as well as its release on Echocord. I’ve long associated Echocord with a certain strain of dub techno, and to see Vladislav Delay’s name appear on the label is quite odd indeed, given his own abandonment of dub techno almost a decade ago. However, with the foundation of the quartet, Sasu Ripatti has seen fit to return the Vladislav Delay moniker to pure electronic experiments while letting the quartet continue on the path mapped out by Tummaa. The Latoma EP, then, constitutes a pretty sharp left turn for both record label and artist, and a pretty stellar one at that.

“Latoma” begins with a tangle of submerged electronics, but a steady, slow kick drum soon pummels its way through with cavernous bass rubs in tow, recalling to some degree Andy Stott’s recent work. Sounds continue to be piled on and snarled further, slowly melding together into a melodic whole, while a snare drum beats away tirelessly in its attempt to make the whole thing seem a lot faster than it actually is. “Korpi” is more typical of previous Vladislav Delay experiments in broken time signatures, with Ripatti’s warped rhythmic sense the star attraction. It builds in a way most techno releases simply wish they could, with each unstable release of low frequencies ratcheting up the tension to delirious effect.

The A-side of the record is certainly an imposing side to follow, but the dream team of Ricardo Villalobos and Max Loderbauer are drafted in to create a remix that is almost as good. Their version is an extended trip into “Latoma’”s source material, manipulated and warped by whatever diabolical machines exist in the deepest corners of Schneiders Büro, and guided by Villalobos’ heady, thumping beat. Loderbauer’s modular systems cut through frequency space in wide chunks, providing brief, fleeting moments of levity amid a sea of undulating sounds. We all know what its like to watch as scenes drip down into the increasingly-consensus-driven mire (some would argue that’s where Villalobos himself has been the past couple of years), and that makes music that is unafraid to be challenging all the more precious. Latoma is well deserving of this status, and it sees three of electronic music’s most noteworthy figures in top form.

[Honest Jon's Records]

Though the spotlight has been on the Moritz von Oswald Trio in which he performs, Sasu Ripatti formed his own experimental jazz quartet a few years ago. Having spent most of their time together gigging, the group has just recorded their debut album at what seems like the perfect time. By all accounts Ripatti’s drumming is one of the most impressive aspects of Moritz von Oswald’s acclaimed trio, and his own musical history begins with jazz drumming. Early hints about the new project stated that he would be using a traditional drum kit (instead of the sculptures and other oddities used for the trio), and that he would be drafting in Lucio Capece on clarinet, Derek Shirley on double bass and Mika Vainio on electronics to fill out the quartet. Perhaps it was naive to believe this meant the quartet’s debut LP on Honest Jon’s would be based in (somewhat) traditional jazz. Ripatti has never made a record that resembles anything else out there, but given his background and the increased interest in jazz in the techno/house scene, maybe the Vladislav Delay Quartet would make a full-fledged jazz record.

Pressing play immediately dispels all of those assumptions. “Minus Degrees, Bare Feet, Tickles” is one of the more shocking things Ripatti has made, a grating wall of pure analog noise conjured by Vainio, who’s probably the best in the business at that sort of thing. The noise slowly sets into a certain rhythm while the rest of the quartet stake out their sonic territory, and as the grating static recedes, Ripatti builds tension with his percussion. “Santa Teresa” is the calm after the storm, reminding of 2009′s Tummaa in its timbres and stunted, deliberate rhythmic pacing. Vladislav Delay Quartet was recorded over a week in Belgrade, and some of these tracks, such as “Santa Teresa” or “Des Abends” certainly sound like they could be almost pure live takes. Closer, repeated listening, however, reveals just how much processing and production has gone into each sound.

One of the album’s defining traits is its unpredictability, oscillating between airy cuts filled with identifiable acoustic instruments and nearly suffocating noise experiments. After a suite of slow, mostly spacious tunes, “Hohtokivi” plunges the listener back into a noisy, tense world defined by tenacious and fuzzy plucked bass tones. Just when you think you have the quartet’s world mapped out, “Louhous” startles with its almost industrial rhythms; a kind of rhythmic propulsion not heard anywhere else on the album. While the influences of electronic music and jazz can certainly be heard, Vladislav Delay Quartet‘s most impressive aspect lies in its unconventional approach. More than anything else this year, this is music that I’ve truly never heard before, and yet after giving it the time it demands, connections are formed that would be impossible to detect given just a cursory glance. It is an album that not only confounds expectations, but more importantly opens up sonic territories few have explored before.

Luomo. Vladislav Delay. Uusitalo. Whichever name he used, Sasu Ripatti has been pushing boundaries for his whole career. His legendary Multila album on Chain Reaction took dub techno to places it had never been before (and has never been since), while Anima on Mille Plateaux continues to astound eight years after its release. As Luomo he practically defined “micro-house” with Vocalcity, considered by many to be simply the finest house album of the decade, while Uusitalo is an outlet for his reduced techno excursions. Recently he has received praise as the all-important drummer for the Moritz von Oswald Trio, released Tummaa as Vladislav Delay and collaborated with partner AGF on Symptoms. We caught up recently with Sasu to chat about his history, his future and just what exactly those “drums” are on Vertical Ascent.

Tell me about your early musical history as a jazz drummer. Who were some of your influences and how exactly did you start producing electronic music?

I was really intensively into jazz and drumming and my plan was to become one of the greats. I was maybe 14 then. I spent all my time studying and playing drums, so much work and dedication it’s crazy when looking back. Anyway, at some point I realized all the visions I had about jazz were from 60′s and that it wouldn’t exist anymore these days. I realized it wouldn’t be possible to do what I wanted to do and basically gave up on drums and percussion. That lead to experiments on all fronts, drugs and new music, travels to Jamaica, etc. I got really lost for a moment, shocked from this realization I couldn’t do what I had so much wanted and planned.

Along the way I begun expanding from drums to experimental percussion, trying to look for new directions and challenges. Eventually I hooked up with electronic samplers and digital percussion controllers, which then led me to first look at synthesizers and sequencers, learning about possibilities to make music by myself with machines. I had tried producing and composing music with some bands but had found it impossible with so many people all going different directions. So given a chance to try out making my own music by myself I jumped at the chance, giving up all the rest. The only thing was, I didn’t know about any electronic music then except for some commercial stuff like Prodigy et al., which I thought was ridiculous. I was still trying to do some kind of jazz whatever stuff which actually was quite close to what they would call electronic or ambient music I’d learn later.

How did you hook up with the Chain Reaction guys?

Eventually I learned about what was going on in Germany and about interesting electronic music, and bought some vinyls and heard about Chain Reaction. And they were the most influential outlet I had heard and I really wanted to release stuff on their label. I sent a C-cassette to them and Mark called me one day saying they wanted to release my stuff.

How do you translate the extreme complexities of your Vladislav Delay work into a live performance?

Technically it’s not possible to do live sets as I do it in the studio but the principle is the same. I just throw in whatever available and force it to make some musical sense, to me at least. I believe a lot in random elements and not too much controlling them but rather letting them do their things. Basically in a live situation I don’t construct a track from small elements like in the studio but rather push bigger elements together to make new soundfields.

You sometimes reference your work under other monikers in your music, for example, Uusitalo’s “Notke2.” How do your various guises influence each other? Does something you learned or a technique used while making a Luomo track carry over to a Vladislav Delay track, for example?

In the beginning when I was still trying to figure out my things it happened more than these days that [monikers] were really mixing up. I didn’t know what the whole techno thing was but I began experimenting with bass drum grooves, and sometimes I would just take a Delay track and make a groove remix out of it. Eventually I put that stuff out as an Uusitalo album. Also back in the early days I was just sitting in the studio long hours and making lots of stuff and not always having an overview of what was what, and it didn’t help I was doing quite a bit of drugs back then. I don’t have an intentional plan to mix between these projects these days.

What about with your groups? Does something learned while working with the Moritz Von Oswald trio influence some of your solo work?

Of course everything influences everything but I’d say all this is very subconscious. Nothing I could point my finger at and describe.

The Moritz Von Oswald Trio started in a live format. How did Vertical Ascent come about? Were these “patterns” that you had previously worked on live, or were they completely new studio ideas?

We made first patterns for this one concert in Berlin which was kind of a plan to see if the whole project would work and how. Seeing it did we continued working on these patterns and they ended up on the album as well albeit in quite refined versions.

What was the drum setup you used? Obviously it was no standard drum kit…

No kit at all. Lots of strange stuff I have been collecting and using on my solo stuff in very “hidden” ways.
Metal percussion sculptures hand-made by Pete Engelhart from New York City, Udu drums from Africa, Berimbau from Brazil, water cylinder drums, strange shakers and voodoo toys, etc. That’s my passion, the sounds. Nowadays I also play lots of conga drums and other hand drums which has again expanded the palette really nicely.

What is the idea behind your own Vladislav Delay Quartet? Do you use the same kinds of drums as you do in the Moritz von Oswald Trio?

No. With the Quartet I use a more traditional jazz set but I try to play it in original way and make it also sound unlike a traditional kit or drummer playing it even. With the Trio there’s lots of programmed beats from Moritz while with Quartet I will provide all the rhythms with the kit.

One would think that a move from Berlin to a small island in Finland would result in more solitary efforts, but this has proven to be quite wrong. In fact, your move seems to have signaled a shift in your work towards more collaboration. Is this a fair assessment? How else has the move impacted your productions?

Well many collaborative things began before moving, but really I have learned it doesn’t matter where you live, even with collaborations if you really want to do them. And I guess I’m more and more happy to do more than just solo work even though I still like that most. The move has impacted great results in my private and family life which will in turn of course greatly influence the work as well. I think the move was the best thing I could have done. Even if I’m a bit far away from everyone I feel more interested in doing things and inspired creatively, which I can’t say was the case while living in Berlin. Naturally that was the reason to move out of Berlin. Also, these days with planes and Internet it really doesn’t matter where you live. Every single interview I have done since I moved to Berlin has been at least partly about Berlin. To be honest the whole Berlin thing begins to come out of my ears. It’s just a city after all. Not a piece of diamond or Mecca or something.

Why did you choose to have collaborators for Tummaa under the Vladislav Delay name?

First of all, I wanted to make an album with Delay aesthetics but not use synths and samplers — sources I had used on previous albums. I wanted to use live elements and expand on sound sources, and because I can’t play that many instruments I had to look for potential contributors.

You decided to release Tummaa with the Leaf Label instead of on your own Huume. What was behind that decision? What lies in the future for Huume?

I think nothing lies in the future for Huume. It had its moment and time, but now times have changed so much from since I started the label and I am not willing or able to adjust to these changes. Such as selling less, pushing more, not having any fun anymore, dealing with business solutions instead of creative decisions, etc. I don’t have time for all this, and neither interest. So I decided to step back on this and look for labels that still seem to be able to be creative in these times. Maybe again in some years time I will decide to get back to releasing music by myself but a lot will have to change for that to happen.

What can we look forward to in the future from you in your many groups and monikers?

Quite a bit of new music in all fronts. I have spent the last year building a house and studio on the island and now that all that housekeeping stuff is more or less finished I can get back to what I really know and like doing. I feel really an urge to make new music and explore new possibilities. Even thought it might look like I have been busy I didn’t really have a chance to make music the last 12 months which has been healthy in a way but also troubling as I’d rather make music than anything else.

[Leaf]

When we last left Sasu Ripatti he was serving as the all-important drummer in Moritz von Oswald’s trio of electronic-jazz explorers. Before that he was serving up another slice of experimental-techno-poetry-pop with partner AGF in the form of their second album, Symptoms. And in late 2008 we received Luomo’s Convivial, his fifth album which was noteworthy for its numerous collaborators and vocalists. See a trend? The man I’ve always pictured a loner, producing during cold, lonely winter nights, has proven to be quite the collaborator. Luckily for us, this has proven to be a welcome development. Not only is his name popping up more often than ever, but Mr. Ripatti’s projects have evolved and new ones have been born, and old standby Vladislav Delay, his main and perhaps most critically acclaimed identity, has not been spared. In a first, the new Vladislav Delay album is partially the work of a trio: Ripatti, Lucio Caprece on clarinet and saxophone, and Craig Anderson on the Rhodes. The final product, however, is all the doing of Ripatti, who manipulated and rearranged recordings of Caprece and Armstrong as the basis for Tummaa.

Anyone worried that bringing other musicians into the fold and utilizing acoustic sources has changed Vladislav’s music needn’t be afraid; this is very much the work of the man behind classics such as Anima and Multila. Delay’s fractured and distinctive sense of rhythm can be found all over the record, arousing the same temporal confusion that can sometimes result from spending a little too much time with him. Rather than take a sharp left turn, however, Vladislav has evolved. Tummaa has a crispness not previously found in his work, largely thanks to the textures of the piano and woodwind instruments. Melody plays a much larger part than in previous outings, with tracks like “Melankolia” and “Musta Planeetta” exploring the contours of melodic motifs without overtly dwelling on them. Always one for otherworldly sounds, somehow Ripatti manages to make the most terrestrial of these sound the most alien. In an early album-defining moment, Caprece’s clarinet materializes from the densely-crafted void in “Kuula (Kiitos),” making the windswept mountaintops of the first few minutes seem relatively down to earth. Elsewhere on “Mustelmia” and “Toive,” 4/4 rhythms plod along, forcing you bob your head in a way you never thought possible, resetting your rhythmic notions after they’ve been thoroughly discombobulated.

As an avowed Vladislav Delay fan, Tummaa is a more than welcome addition to the extensive Sasu Ripatti canon. Each album has the uncanny ability to retain Vladislav’s identity yet flip the script on his previous works; but more importantly, each album brings to mind elaborate visuals and has its own distinct personality. Vladislav invites you into his world for an hour and a connection is forged in ways few artists are able to pull off. Tummaa is both his softest and roughest album yet, but what that means and the ideas he means to convey are for you to figure out. It may take a couple listens, but your time with Vladislav Delay is always well spent.