New album of Mika Vainio saw the light both on the vinyl & on the CD thanks to the his own label Sähkö Recordings, where from time to time not only Mika (whose works dominate in the label's discography) but also such popular techno-musicians as Wolfgang Voigt (Mike Ink) & Fred Giannelli, strongly attracted by experimental sound, were released.To tell you the truth, Oleva's sound will catch Pan Sonic project lovers' fancy, it's fully living up to label's name, that can be translated into English as 'electricity'. Yeah, it's exactly the same thing that is beeping & cracking during its running through transmission facilities & that one that is avidly sticking into our electrical appliances. Sometimes this electrified sound is pulsating with rhythms full of energy. Those are driving with powerful coinage of bass drum.
Somewhere we are wrapped by the scary silence, gloomy drone & abstract, minimal noisy collages. Some tracks even gain some kind of space theme, those are hinted at with typical synthesizer's sequences with delay effect. But it is doubtful whether we can call our listener a 'space traveller'. He'd rather concern himself with technical supply of expeditions to other planets, when you are sitting in a small room full of blinking, squeaking & cracking devices. I must confess, it's strange to see colored photo of some mountain river on the release cover. But in my imagination there's no compilation for nature's landscapes with different kinds of sound's injections of dangerous electronics which turn Oleva album into the great 12-tracked movement through the postindustrial areas.
- Sähkö Recordings
- Mika Vainio