- Sasu Ripatti has been producing various strains of techno under numerous aliases since the mid-nineties. Hailing from Finland, his music is worlds away from that country's naive free-folk experiments currently finding journalistic favour, displaying instead a level of independent sure-footedness seldom found in contemporary music of any genre. 'Tulenkantaja' marks only his second outing as Uusitalo (best described as his dub-techno guise), but the side-long developments that made up 2000's 'Vapaa Muurari' - where rhythms were slowly revealed from steadily chipped-at granite - are eschewed in favour of more direct and concise 4/4 techno tracks. 'Tulenkantaja' thus lies closer to the clearly delineated house productions he makes as Luomo than the grey beatless thunderstorms of Vladislav Delay.
Opener 'Paskaa Musaa' emerges dripping wet, with lusciously blurred voices and rhythms bathed in thick aqueous pads. There's Ripatti's signature bassline (movements around a set pattern rather than a pattern itself unvaryingly reiterated), and a pan-pipe of sorts processed into listenability, but drum patterns aren't firmly established until the following 'Odottava Peto', a thumping dose of shuddering funk recalling the brash chords of fellow Scandinavians Mikael Stav and and Johan Skugge. Here Ripatti is at his most exhilarating, adapting many of today's minimal tropes to his own slippery standard: where Skugge pounds euphoric patterns repeatedly, Ripatti's pop up by surprise, slinking behind darting basslines, melting into the surrounding clutter, reappearing in new formations.
'Tervatahroja' is equally enticing, rattling garbage can hats morph into claps while rhythms and melodies tighten into pleasurable knots. 'Lasi Hajoaa' bounces the bright tones of Poker Flat between recurring bass blasts and Ripatti's usual background clamour, and 'Tulenkantaja' poaches the tempo and bassline from Matias Aguayo's 'De Papel', only to vary the speed and turn the disco into quicksand.
The quality dips occasionally, as on 'Lumimies', where Ripatti's usual knack for rhythm is ditched in favour of standard minimal clicks and thud, and sat beside an unusually bland melodic cell it recalls Losoul filler. 'Nokkonen Päiväunilla' takes the other extreme, an overfilled piece of build-up leading nowhere. There are moments throughout as appreciably windswept as the expanses of tundra and decaying tower blocks featured on the cover, but for the most part 'Tulenkantaja' is satsifyingly unstable disco music, often as engaging as any of Ripatti's work and therefore well worth investigating.
Tracklist1 Paskaa Musaa
2 Odottava Peto
3 Kalajuttuja
4 Lumimies
5 Nokkonen Päiväunilla
6 Uutta Verta Hangella
7 Tulenkantaja
8 Tervatahroja
9 Misut Irti / Huutaa
10 Lasi Hajoaa