Finnish duo Aki Himanen and Aleksi Kinnunen return to Jazz-o-Tech with ‘A Thing With Feathers‘, an LP exploring deeper the pair’s fusing of jazz elements with electronic music which we first heard on their previous EP.
There’s a sort of understandable nervous trepidation that comes when seeing that the sweepingly broad genres of jazz and electronic music combined, but Himanen and Kinnunen avoid falling into the obvious traps others have made when mixing the two houses, and tighten their act compared with the already convincing ‘Dawn Drops‘ EP.
The nature of the successes seems to lie in the methodology, wherein the pair strike an ever-changing narrative between Himanen’s trumpet and electronics and Kinnunen’s drums, and between live improvisation and generative or more repetitive electronic patterns.
The album offers many friezes of their explorations of rhythm and styles, but the most clubforward is ‘Resolution Of‘, our premiere. The introduction sees scratched droning melodies in the foreground bringing a dark mood, but it’s quickly dispelled by the more upbeat centresection, clipped and anthemic chord patterns reminding of some Four Tet / Floating Points party productions. The use of instruments is far from subtle, but never jarring, marking a very smooth blend of the duo’s inspirations.
‘A Thing With Feathers’ is scheduled for release 27 May via Jazz-o-Tech. Order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Butterfly Globe
2. Shining Shades
3. A Thing with Feathers (feat Iiro Rantala)
4. Conflict Dance
5. Lost in Balance (feat Eero Tikkanen)
6. Resolution of
7. Uneasy Tones