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.

I-LP-O In Dub - Communist Dub (Editions Mego)

Ilpo Väisänen deviates from the Dub manifesto as written by Lee Perry and the gang to give us the bare bones of an already lean beast. Bleached out beats skitter around amid rarefied textures and percussive patterns fluctuate lending it all the air of a broken ideology.

Is it a repost to post-socialist despair in the Western world? Or just Ilpo experimenting with space? Maybe both. The bass that anchors trad Dub is absent, aside from sub-sub-woofer type punctuations, as are trademark drops, although much of it feels like one big drop down the elevator shaft into a bottomless black hole. Many have played fast and loose with Dub in mind across all electronic genres but Väisänen's Commie variation is grittier than most. Avoiding cookie cutter traps, these tracks are an idea of Dub that got lost somewhere along the way. That's no bad thing.

Father Sun Rudealis is more in the spirit of Black Ark science than the mode, if The Upsetter can be said to have had only one. Kolyma Stoned virtually disappears around the 3min mark, remaining as a ghost rhythm whilst jagged minimalist effects take over. Whilst there are echoes of his part in Pan Sonic, it lacks their disciplined approach. Ironically, it's the opposite of regimental Red theory in history; striking strange, awkward, unruly blows for freedom from regulation. Whether that's to its advantage I'll leave you to decide.

Pan Sonic - Oksastus (Kvitnu)

Travelling through time from June 6th, 2009, Pan Sonic return to pulverise your mind. Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen's brutal bump and grind mechanics resonate as powerfully today as they did one night in Kyiv, Ukraine. Witness 17'28" (track titles simply describe their length), which starts with an increasingly fast sound wave fit to ensure that your brain is primed before being pummelled by a hyper beat and blistered by noise before driving slowly towards a climatic crunch - phew. The intensity rarely lets up, least of all on 5'31", although there's room to breath on 4'35", 4'41" and 5'42", the relatively calm pieces. You probably know what 'calm' means in this context. 11'03" starts in a stable fashion, but 'live' interference begins around the 3min mark when the duo set you on a road towards their sonic sink hole down which you will inevitably fall, the electronic roar ringing in your ears. A fierce blast from the past and a real treat for Pan Sonic fans.

Kvitnu