https://youtu.be/aeYyw9FP19Y

Boomkat Review:

Lydspor One & Two is one of the last known studio recordings made by Mika Vainio before he died in a tragic accident in 2017. It was recorded at and commissioned by Moog Sound-Lab in April 2015, and comprises two extended excursions into the wires and golden filters of the lab’s rare prototype Moog Modular System 55.

Mika was so enamoured with the machine that he declared “I Could work with this machine for the rest of my life… I would need nothing else” which is probably the highest endorsement possible, and the results documented in these recordings clearly show that he got a lot out of his time in the lab.

Lydspor, meaning soundtrack in Danish, unfolds across 40 minutes into two parts. Pt.1 finds him taking a tentative minute to find his bearings before precipitating a swarming cluster buzz that engulfs the track, shelling down blunt force bass hits and torrential drones for the first 14 minutes or so, then panning out into eerie darkness in a manner so timelessly associated with Vainio as to send chills.

Pt.2 gradually picks up another head of dense drone steam to choking effect, calving away into black cloud dynamics of corrosive intensity keeping time with a metronomic, doom-laden bass pulse that edges us nearer to some abyss; full of dread and nervous energy.

These are growling, engrossing, important recordings that provide another reminder of Vainio's ability to create intense pieces of music from seemingly not very much. In his hands, elemental sounds take on a visceral, hard-hitting quality that are so full of life and energy as to genuinely defy explanation. It's an alchemy that many have tried but few have mastered; in Vainio's absence it now fees like there's a vast chasm where there was once an unstoppable force...