VLADISLAV DELAY - Tummaa

Five of the seven tracks on Sasu Ripatti's new album under the Vladislav Delay moniker feature Craig Armstrong. The two have already collaborated on a fine record released four years ago under the name The Dolls. On that occasion Agf was also present, Ripatti's life partner, who was responsible for bringing together the Finnish dj/musician and the Scottish pianist/arranger (who wrote much of the string parts on "Protection" by Massive Attack). It was precisely on that occasion that Vladislav Delay rediscovered an old love of his: the drums.

It comes as no surprise, then, that "Tummaa" sounds different from anything Vladislav Delay has ever released before. There's less silicon and more experimentation across the album's seven tracks. Armstrong's piano and rhodes, along with the saxophones and clarinets of Argentine musician Lucio Capece — the other musician involved in the record's sessions — are treated with an almost industrial attitude, while Ripatti, for his part, handles a drum kit as if it were an avant-jazz orchestra from which to draw every kind of sound. References to techno are naturally still present, and the improvisations in general unfold over long loops (often played on piano) that help build an enchanting atmosphere.

Right from the opening track, "Melankolia", the record marks out the new boundaries of Vladislav Delay's explorations: the space is pristine, and scattered background noises carve out room for an anguished piano line, accompanied by sporadic bursts of silicon. The arctic melancholy of Scandinavian landscapes emerges in the intro of the following "Kuula", before a clarinet transforms the dirge into a whirlwind of Trans-Siberian flavors. On "Toive" Ripatti's love for the shamanic trance of electric-era Miles Davis comes through, thanks to a groove that builds until it explodes into a bubble of white-hot silicon.

Tummaa means darkness in Finnish, and Ripatti recorded the album's tracks during the months when the sun shines for only a few hours a day on his native Hailuoto. Hence the dense, nocturnal air that pervades the record's full hour-plus running time. Credit is also due to the drastic shift from electronic to analog embraced by the Finnish musician, further confirmed by his recent collaboration with Moritz Von Oswald in his trio, and by the forthcoming recordings under the name Vladislav Delay Quartet, alongside Mika "Pan Sonic" Vainio, Derek Shipley and Lucio Capece himself.

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01/08/2009