innerspaceboy

I'm fairly new to free/freak folk, and I definitely detect some Frownland influence at the outset. I'm only familiar with the more pop-oriented poster-children of the genre, like CocoRosie, Devendra Banhart, and Joanna Newsom, and am quite curious what's to come with this record.

There is an ominous, haunting quality about the music - a looming dreariness and surreal presence in both the vocals and in the instrumentation. The atmosphere is somber, heavy, and thoughtful in an abstract sort of way.

It was instantly refreshing to hear the artist exploring the sonic space freely without adhering to typical structural and melodic tropes of more traditional genres.

The lyrical content was mysterious as I've no prior exposure to the Finnish dialect. But that added to the abstract quality of the music which I enjoyed.

I also appreciated the balance the artist struck between sound and silence. This was particularly evident throughout the tracks at the middle portion of the album. It's a quality I admire from the ambient genre and from Stockhausen and his contemporaries, so I'm glad to see it employed so effectively here.

Toward the end of the record, I began to really appreciate the formless, unstructured properties of this album. No choruses, no refrains, just a slow unfolding - musical meandering with no particular destination or timeline in place. That works quite well in this context and was surprising as this is much "freer" than the music of the mainstays I mentioned above.

The closing selection would be very much at home on an ambient record. There is a wonderfully organic quality with elements of field recording and beatless wandering. And the autumnal vocals are a lovely touch. "Suru ei" is likely my favorite track on the album.

Thanks for a most enjoyable offering!

9/10

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