Hexenhaus were one of the most fascinating and original Finnish post-punk bands in the mid-80s, drawing their decadent momentum from the alleys shadowed by factory chimneys of the industrial town of Pori. Rocking in the spirit of Virgin Prunes and Bauhaus, Hexenhaus embody a touch of the insane horror of The Cramps and Peter Straub as well as the humanity of Hermann Hesse. Scraping off the coarse layer of ominous nihilism reveals a shade of pink softness and unrestrained twinkle, which sets Hexenhaus apart from their contemporaries. Full Contact Records (Ektro) releases this compilation LP together with Svart Records. Jumalan kosto includes Hexenhaus’ debut single Ikiyö/Katakombi, the unreleased follow-up single, various demo takes from along the band’s career from 1984 to 1987, and their last recording Suutele minua Kate picked from the compilation EP Antakke Leipä.
The most Swedish noise-rock of today comes, surprisingly, from Finland.
The vivid images of decadence portrayed in Slussenanalys’ lyrics are rich in biblical symbolism and existential pondering. The words are set to music that evokes the hopeless frenzy and uneven hobbling of a hobo with a law-enforcement bullet lodged in his leg. Vocalist/lyricist Esko Lönnberg paints a bleak-yet-poetic picture of a Stockholm with no light and no future, while the band behind him conjures a rocking wall of noise that leans towards the Chicago of the ‘80s. It is a picture of a city in which an immigrant child with a broken home is predestined to spend his days either on the street or behind bars, his nights filled with the sounds of shattering storefronts and the barking of police dogs, ever closer and closer.
The future seems dark for all involved in the stories of Slussenanalys' Aquila Helvetos Asfaltos. Despite all the despair and low expectations for a better tomorrow, the songs manage to find nobility among human wreckage and hope in the dark shadows of the gray concrete cubes that line the streets of an urban maze of alcoholics and addicts.
Slussenanalys aims to reverse the seemingly unending downward spiral of life, to rise above the suffocating smog and to bask in the light of pure inspiration.
Aquila Helvetos Asfaltos first appeared in 2011 when Ektro Records and Svart records teamed up to penetrate the markets of Finland’s neighbouring country with a limited, vinyl-only product too surprising and uncompromising to surrender itself to the mercy of commercial analysis. Now, in May 2013, the album finally receives its belated official release as Ektro Records sets it loose on CD, expanded with a non-album bonus track and three lengthy and punishing lo-fi improvisations that originally appeared on the band’s long-gone eponymous debut cassette.
COMING SOON
Esko Lönnberg - vocals
Jussi Lehtisalo - guitar
Mika Raekivi - guitar
Eetu Henttonen - bass
Tuomas Laurila - drums
The Kolmas - Kolmas testi LP
220413 | 15:09
Compiled from the few known THE KOLMAS live performances and recordings especially for this LP, KOLMAS TESTI presents to you entertaining moments with timeless music from over the years. INTRO was recorded live in front of a small crowd in a hot garage in Tornio, Finland, in the early 1980s. The remixed versions of THE KOLMAS-LOGO as well as PUOLET PAAVIA parts 1 and 2 were recorded in IKBAL Studios/Tornio. VIISI OSAA, recorded in IKBAL Studios/Helsinki in the 1990s, were later released by Bad Vugum label (PASSIONS OF LÄJÄ ÄIJÄLÄ bad-50X, 2004).The latest nine compositions, which are set in the city of Oulu, give a finishing touch to the coherent whole of this album. Now available in digital format. Cat power, natural and inspiringly mechanical production.
Dear Listener, enjoy!
Yours truly,
Veli-Matti O. Äijälä/THE KOLMAS in Oulu, 2013
- - - -
Ein paar DIE KOLMAS Performances und diese Schallplatte speziell zusam-mengestellten Aufnahmen gut bekannt ist, wird die DRITTE STUNDE, um Ihnen einen unterhaltsamen Moment zeitlose Musik im Laufe der Jahre. Tornio der 1980er-Jahre, Anfang der ,,pre-recorded"; INTRO leben in kleinen Zahlen in der Mitte des Publikums, in einer heißen Garage. Remixed und an einem Abschnitt des KOLMAS-LOGO, und die HÄLFTE DES PAPSTES, Teil 1 und 2, Ikbal Studios / Torino. Pasila (als Teil von Helsinki), 1990 FÜNF TEILE, Ikbal Studios / Helsinki, der später veröffentlichte ein Bad Vugum (PASSIONS OF LÄJÄ ÄIJÄLÄ bad-50X 2004).
Oulu platziert in den verbleiben-den neun Stand der Technik bilden die Zusammensetzung dieses Album ein kohärentes Ganzes. Ikbal Studios / Oulu jetzt digitaler Form.
A soundtrack for Mika Taanila's short film about one of the most extreme individual endurance sports dating back to to the 1870s. The competitors run with minimal sleep, all the while trying to accumulate as many miles as possible on a one-mile paved loop in a park.
The film was shot during The Self-Transcendence Six Day Race in Flushing Meadows, Corona Park, Queens, New York City between April 22-28, 2012.
This time these experimental veterans study the both ends of the previously unheard static / hyper-active scale. Soundwise they have clearly proceeded to the 21st century, jumping from limpid synthesizer soundscapes to wall-smashing "speed-kraut" bursts. The triptych construction of the album along with the cover art that portrays war and street riots raise various associations on the history and the current state of Western civilization.
The previously announced Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, Billy Boys and Mother Susurrus t-shirts are all available in the webstore now. We're also taking pre-orders for the upcoming Perikato 7" Kovat ajat E.P. – release date April 5th.
Death Trip LP pre-order & new shirt
200313 | 13:09
Death Trip's Pain is Pain - The Complete Death Trip 1988-1994 LP available for pre-order now. Release date is April 5th. Gatefold jacket, 500 x black vinyl. Die hard version comes with a Death Trip 'Pain Is Pain' badge and a logo patch! A new Death Trip shirt is also available in the shop right now.
Death Trip is as uncompromising as it is hypnotic - an intense concentration of distorted guitars in the spirit of The Stooges, The Birthday Party and Spacemen 3. Branded one of the most frightening bands in Finland through the infernal screaming of Läjä Äijälä (Terveet Kädet, Billy Boys, The Sultans...), Death Trip is known to have been an influence on the Finnish underground, being one of the factors that contributed to the formation Circle, for example.
Pain is Pain - The Complete Death Trip 1988-1994 collects the band's three 7" singles (originally released on the legendary Finnish indie label Bad Vugum) and rare demos on one LP.
Ektro is now taking pre-orders for the following items:
CIRCLE: Fluorescent Skull SHIRT
PHARAOH OVERLORD: Horn SHIRT
PHARAOH OVERLORD: #3 LP (black vinyl)
PHARAOH OVERLORD: #3 LP (special white vinyl edition with a badge and a patch)
BAXTER STOCKMAN: Punter CD / LP
MOTHER SUSURRUS: Maahaavaa CD
Release date for these and the previously announced new shirts is March 28.
Erkki Kurenniemi - 50 Years On-Off out now
140313 | 00:11
Erkki Kurenniemi’s 50 Years On-Off salutes the 50th anniversary of Kurenniemi’s first groundbreaking musical work. In January 1963 Finnish electronic musical instrument designer, and inventor Erkki Kurenniemi composed On-Off, the first Finnish electro-acoustic work, which anticipated noise as a genre of electronic popular music. The inspiration for the work was an acoustic phenomenon of roaring turbines that Kurenniemi had experienced in his teen-age years when visiting a power plant generator hall. On this deluxe cassette you’ll find the original cut, a short German edit and a brand new re-visit by Mikko Ojanen and Aku Raski.
Erkki Kurenniemi: 50 Years On-Off, C32, RUT-007, hand numbered edition of 200.
Out now! Released by Ruton Music, cassette label propelled by Jussi Lehtisalo and film-maker Mika Taanila. Only available through Ektro's webstore.
VHK - Veled haraptat csillagot! (Bite the Stars!) CD/LP
080313 | 13:57
The Hungarian shamanic punk legend VHK (Galloping Coroners) release their first studio album in thirteen years. Their magical folk music on the new album, Bite the Stars!, presents the band’s extremely powerful presence fresher than ever, with ferociously transcendental songs reaching an extraordinary dramatic effect. One of the most original and charismatic groups in the world, VHK conceive music in its cosmic spirit, full of magic and wonder, receiving their hypnotizing energies from the power of primordial life instinct.
Praised by icons such as Iggy Pop, Jello Biafra and Henry Rollins, VHK have enjoyed a cult following in Europe and the US since the mid-80s. The long-awaited new CD and limited edition vinyl is released by Ektro Records.
Three new shirts of limited quantities added to the shop. Release date March 28th.
CIRCLE: Dino
BILLY BOYS: Billy Boys
MOTHER SUSURRUS: Capitoline Wolf
Mother Susurrus - Maahaavaa CD
200213 | 22:41
Eerie, tribal chanting and rhythmic convulsions. Bass roars out of an unexplored abyss and manic drum thunder morphs into a meditative knell. A ghastly wail induces strong hallucinatory effects while two guitars churn an alien maelstrom of sound. This is a heavy psychedelica five-piece called Mother Susurrus from Tampere, Finland.
The shady bunch has released a self-titled EP in 2010, which garnered a lot of praise from critics and public alike. After many passionate live performances and a colorful songwriting process, the band found themselves tangled in the cosmic webs of Ektro Records, the home for such avant-rock legends as Circle and Pharaoh Overlord. The astronomical objects were perfectly aligned for Mother's debut album.
On Maahaavaa, Mother Susurrus delivers an inspiring mixture of hypnotic rock and erratic acid-molten metal - always aiming at artistic progression and unpredictability.
The Maya didn't know anything, whereas Hebosagil knows when the hour comes, when it’s time for Lähtö, and their manner of exiting is big, loud, penetrating, and hard to the core. From the fallout, the radiometers are detecting remnant radiation from Slayer and Melvins, while the cockroaches may still recognise the brutal beat of Radiopuhelimet and Unsane. Musically, Hebosagil’s Lähtö relies equally on their previous material and on turning a new page. They plunge towards more and more tormenting tunes that stick to your frontal lobe, avoiding the pitfalls from which most of the so-called heavy and uncompromising bands are eternally doomed to seek a way out. They don’t know anything. Hebosagil knows.
Ruton Music, cassette label propelled by Jussi Lehtisalo and film-maker Mika Taanila, releases three new cassettes on February 20, 2013
Ektroverde’s Music for Outlets takes us back in time to their consumerist epoch Music for Supermarkets (Bad Vugum, 1997). Their take on global ”outlet phenomenom” grinds the wheels of shopping euphoria to the treshold of a maximum dose. Partly reminiscent of Devo’s E-Z Listening Disc, partly hyperactive nursery rhymes, it’s bargain anyway. Everything must go!
Circle’s Suur-Pori ("Expanded Pori") is a live soundtrack to Mika Taanila's silent film triptych Pori (1998). This performance took place in Pori on November 18, 2011 at Valopiha of Porin Puuvilla. The show featured the band’s baroquesque seven-piece line-up, some very loud moments plus an expanded version of the film with eight 16mm film projectors.
Erkki Kurenniemi’s 50 Years On-Off salutes the 50th anniversary of Kurenniemi’s first groundbreaking musical work. In January 1963 Finnish electronic musical instrument designer, and inventor Erkki Kurenniemi composed On-Off, the first Finnish electro-acoustic work, which anticipated noise as a genre of electronic popular music. The inspiration for the work was an acoustic phenomenon of roaring turbines that Kurenniemi had experienced in his teen-age years when visiting a power plant generator hall. On this deluxe cassette you’ll find the original cut, a short German edit and a brand new re-visit by Mikko Ojanen and Aku Raski.
Ektroverde: Music for Outlets, C52, RUT-005, hand numbered edition of 100.
Circle: Suur-Pori, C89, RUT-006, hand numbered edition of 200.
Erkki Kurenniemi: 50 Years On-Off, C32, RUT-007, hand numbered edition of 200.
Available only thru Ektro’s webstore.
Rättö ja Lehtisalo - Spiritismi
120213 | 00:31
New Rättö ja Lehtisalo 7" Spiritismi coming soon.
Side A: Spiritismi (4:27)
Side B: Pilvivuori (3:28)
Baxter Stockman - Punter CD/LP
110213 | 14:12
Baxter Stockman was founded in Helsinki, Finland in 2006. The aim was to form a band making harsh and strong rock-music. Over the years this collaboration of three young men has molded itself into a tight unit. Flesh has become stringy. Baxter Stockman sounds like a band, not like three musicians who just happened to wander in the same room at the same time. Previously the group has released two cd ep:s and a 7’’ single. March 2013 will see the release of the debut album Punter.
Baxter Stockman attacks with a mundane rage, toppling over it’s prey. RAPEMAN at their meanest, SWANS having cramps, G.G. ALLIN’s forgotten grave… The drums are the size of a high-rise stone building. The guitar and the bass screech uncomfortably. Melodies are often based on just a couple of notes, but create a sonic world taking listener far beyond just that. The Vocals range from declaratory murmurs to harrowing cries. Punter includes a collaboration with UMPIO, mr. Pentti Dassum with his junkelectronix. This is not art for art’s sake, this is simply rock’n’roll as envisioned by Baxter Stockman.
Punter takes it’s place in the continuum of abrasive music, starting from the destruction and rebuilding of punk rock, progressing toward american noise-rock and finally ending up in the finnish underground. While Baxter Stockman respects it’s predecessors, it takes a thorny path of it’s own.
Kult of Nihilow & Full Contact (LP), Ektro Records (CD)
Pharaoh Overlord #3 LP
090213 | 08:20
Pharaoh Overlord's third full-length album was originally released with two additional tracks by the UK-based record label Riot Season in 2005. The stunning album blasts off with Grand Funk Railroad type of unrestrained groove, merging Dire Straits-like guitar picking, petrified hard rock, otherworldly manic exorcism and dizzyingly minimalistic kraut-psychedelia of Ash Ra Tempel. This motorik oddity is now reissued for the first time in vinyl by Full Contact, Ektro Records' sublabel specialising in vinyl releases.
Sudö's debut album Caligula is out now! Here's a brand new music video for the song Red.
Perikato - Kovat ajat E.P. 7"
060213 | 05:57
The Finnish harcore riff monsters Perikato grind the defense to pieces with their merciless punk rock. The band’s expressive bursts keep the spirit of Kirous, Isterismo, and Bastards alive, and their relentless and violent soundscape can be traced back to the early days of grindcore and powerviolence. Perikato’s new EP Kovat Ajat will make you run through a stone wall!
Perikato on murskaava kotimainen hardcore-riffijyrä, jonka säälimätön punk jauhaa puolustuksen seulaksi. yhtyeen läkähdyttävä ilmaisu ylläpitää yhtyeitten Kirous, Isterismo sekä Bastards henkeä, ja luo väkivaltaisella ja tinkimättömällä äänimaailmallaan mielleyhtymiä jopa grindcoren ja powerviolencen varhaisvaiheisiin. Perikadon uusi Kovat Ajat -E.P. saa juoksemaan läpi kiviseinän.
COMING SOON
Circle - Golem / Vesiliirto 2CD
180113 | 00:13
Circle boldly unroll their experimental rock balancing on the edge of everything imaginable. The combination of the crunch of tectonic plates with insane epic improvisations and exhausting repetitiveness on the live album Golem poses questions the listener alone can answer and be impressed of. Mika Rättö squeals like he'd gone mad while the deranged band grinds itself up from the depths. The studio album Vesiliirto seems to strangely drag forward in a sped up universe, where uppers are downers and the dragging are humming bird's wing beats. The album presents remarkable moments for receptive ears from one of Circle's most prolific eras.
Golem/Vesiliirto was first released by Kevyt Nostalgia and Super Metsä as a double vinyl in 2004. The live part was recorded in Semifinal (Helsinki) November 2, 2003. This double CD version contains over 35 minutes of bonus material!
Horn is a departure from the Lord's trademark motorik doom-kraut style. This is nasty, noisy full-on art rock from the outer reaches of space, like early Sonic Youth tearing it up with Crazy Cavan & the Rhythm Rockers. The album includes four previously unheard Pharaoh Overlord compositions and a Spacemen 3 cover. Recorded live in Lahti, Finland 2011. Originally released by Ektro's Full Contact vinyl imprint and Svart Records.
* Relic is a CD-exclusive bonus track that completes the recording, making it the whole concert.
CD RELEASE DATE FEBRUARY 8 - PREORDER NOW
Sudö - Caligula CD
170113 | 21:44
Sudö is a new super line-up in primitive blues and hypnotic psychedelia. Here you may hear the late 1960's era Can shaking hands with John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service, a pale mosquito bitten Nordic trio paddling through brooks of flowing guitarism towards swampy Beefheartian delta. Petri Hagner (guitar, keyboards, vocals), one of the masterminds in the classic Circle line-up of mid-1990's, since then a student and a graduate of the celebrated Lodz Film School has decisively navigated his own way up to the present in both film and music. This is audible in the multidimensional, layered compositions of the group Sudö.
Tuomas Niskanen – who is known as the fierce solo guitarist of Rättö ja Lehtisalo and Eleanoora Rosenholm – now uncovers the more profound and delicate side of his exceptional artistic compulsion. Tuomas Laurila – éminence grise of Circle, drummer of Lusiferiinin Armosta and Slussenanalys – with his peculiar, angular drum beat sets the landing pad for the nimble-footed spider that Hagner and Niskanen create with their Fender hand tools.
SUDØ: (from left to right) Niskanen, Laurila, Hagner
CD RELEASE DATE FEBRUARY 8 - PREORDER NOW
Circle - Manner
030113 | 20:42
Compared to rock years, dog years seem mercifully short. In music, time is generally unkind and immortals reliably turn into sad cartoons: Did anybody but the most desperate sycophants actually flip for Black Sabbath circa TYR, slobber over Recycler-era ZZ Top, or worship Metallica's St. Anger? (If you answered “yes,” please vacate your parents' basement within 24 hours.) After a few decades in the trenches, can a loud, prolific band realistically expect to keep blowing its audience's mind?
Formed in 1991, Circle is that rarest of birds, beasts, and mythological creatures. Hailing from the charmingly brusque city of Pori on Finland's flat southwest coast, these unpredictable lords of hard hypnosis make each successive album feel like a new dawn kissed by profound dew. Their next move could be an eye-opening victory or a fascinating disappointment, an impenetrable joke or a consciousness-expanding freakfest. The group's tight signature rhythms and trance-inducing riffs might take the shape of droning noise-punk (1994's Meronia), icy kraut propulsion (1998's Pori), motorik metal (2003's Sunrise), lo-fi electro-doom (2007's Katapult), arena-storming weirdness (2010's Rautatie), or the vast unknown. It's a thrill to ponder Circle's swollen catalog and sort the sublime from the ridiculous, the conceptual from the emotional, and the cerebral from the savage. Of course, none of this would matter if the records didn't kick ass, as well. And, yeah, they usually do.
Manner, Circle's 20th full-length of proper studio material, is a pivotal work in the ensemble's extensive canon. Originally released in spring 2012 by the U.S. heavies at Hydra Head, this limited edition LP is now available as a shiny, populist CD courtesy of bassist/founder Jussi Lehtisalo's Ektro label. But this latest effort isn't only a potential international breakthrough, it's also a daring step forward.
Barrel-chested and proud, Manner vaguely resembles a Soviet tank parade choreographed to the cocky beat of American AOR and British art-pomp. Ideas first presented on the aforementioned Rautatie have mutated into something peculiar but truly illustrious. Mika Rättö's heroic digital keyboards pile on '80s FM cheese, but his theatrical vocals channel '70s prog extravagance via detours to the opera, the Eurovision Song Contest, a padded cell, and several unsavory leather bars. Meanwhile, Tomi Leppänen's precision quartz drumming imposes martial law on three keen guitarists (Janne Westerlund, Pekka Jääskeläinen, and Julius Jääskeläinen) who wisely favor mood and impact over flash and pyrotechnics. Largely shorn of blasting dissonance and creepy experiments, Circle’s current set list falls squarely between the poles of accessibility and arcana. Glam-pop silliness, denim-vested grandstanding, breezy dreamscapes, and the melody from Brian Eno's “Here Come the Warm Jets” blossom into supple, king-size mantras that glide past with uncommon ease.
Perhaps Manner is a milestone. Perhaps it's a rebirth. Or perhaps it's just another damn fine sliver of Circle. Regardless, it handily proves that these filthy old curs still have plenty of bite.
Also available as a special edition that includes paper 3D glasses and a Circle button!
"You should be making music primarily because you love it. Most everything else is a bonus. If you have fans at all, great. If you can play around your home town, or maybe throughout your country, fantastic. Recording your music should please you first and foremost -- how else could you expect anyone else to get into it? If you do start to become really successful, your troubles will truly begin."
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Erkki Kurenniemi’s 50 Years On-Off salutes the 50th anniversary of Kurenniemi’s first groundbreaking musical work. In January 1963 Finnish electronic musical instrument designer, and inventor Erkki Kurenniemi composed On-Off, the first Finnish electro-acoustic work, which anticipated noise as a genre of electronic popular music. The inspiration for the work was an acoustic phenomenon of roaring turbines that Kurenniemi had experienced in his teen-age years when visiting a power plant generator hall. On this deluxe cassette you’ll find the original cut, a short German edit and a brand new re-visit by Mikko Ojanen and Aku Raski.
