Pan Sonic - Atomin Paluu

Me: "no new albums to review - nothing"
LJ: "that's a shame, innit?"

Hold on, a quick look at recent addictions reminds me that PAN SONIC's Atomin Paluu came out recently. It's old (2005 - 2011) material but since when did time matter to Pan Sonic's music? It shrugs off time, sneers at it, spits in it's face and carries on. In relation to the UK, it's timely, being the soundtrack to a Finnish film, Atomin Paluu [Return of the Atom] about construction of the first nuclear power plant since the Chernobyl - because the £18 billion Hinkley Point deal has stalled. Our new prime minister, Teresa May, should hear this album, not because it's sheer heaviness will make her think thrice about the dangers of nuclear power, but because it's good. Do you think she'd like it?

You know Pan Sonic. You know it's good. You know Mika Vainio (he edited it). What more is there to say? I should give up 'reviewing' albums even though, you might have noticed, I don't always/usually review them in the classic sense. Perhaps that's why online magazines, you know, 'proper' ones, haven't come knocking at my door offering 2p-per-word for reviews. Did I ever tell you about the time I wrote off to the NME in a bid to become a Rock journalist? Oh, those were the days (late-70s) when the inky world was not only real but really important; our only source of opinion about music/new releases. Yawn. I know, you've hear all that before...perhaps you were even there.

Part 5 is playing, a perfect mood for a forthcoming nuclear meltdown...feel the atmosphere...the frisson...or should that be fission? If electronic music is the crucial soundtrack to futuristic imaginings, Pan Sonic on Atomin Paluu prove it's just as suited to present day industrial 'future' power. That and the means by which it's built, those monolithic iron/steel machines, which to many might also symbolise the outmoded concept of nuclear power itself. Mind you, how are wind farms at sea built? That's what I wondered as I gazed at three off the coast at Herne Bay the other day.

How was this album built? There's another mystery. Should Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen invite me into the studio to explain I'd refuse for the same reason I don't want to know how magicians saw girls in half. The otherness of electronic music remains a large part of its appeal. Whilst it's great to know how Roland Kirk got that sound, conversely, ignorance of electro-digital kit is a kind of bliss.