Kemialliset Ystävät

Black Vinyl version. Joskussaaret (~"The Sometimes Islands") is the first Kemialliset Ystävät album in eight years and the follow-up to Siipi Empii (Leaving Records / Ikuisuus). The original plan was to celebrate the group's 30th anniversary, but instead the album turned into a lavish birthday cake with 31 candles, some burning from both ends, some barely at all.

Kemialliset Ystävät was born in 1995. In the beginning it had many names. The idea was to let the music flow freely by only releasing compilation albums with each track credited to a different band. Although that concept wasn't ever fully realized, that spirit of exploration is still guiding KY's actions three decades later. Confusion and musical question marks are the only things guaranteed when you put on a new Kemialliset Ystävät album.

Joskussaaret highlights the world-building side of Jan Anderzén's work with his collaborators. This time the music is presented as a hike through a mysterious, fictional tourist attraction located on two connected islands. Each track evokes a specific building or a spot. The LP version comes with a silkscreened map of the area, imagined by MSHR (Brenna Murphy & Birch Cooper).

Music of Joskussaaret stems from the now times but is also reflecting the group's history by reinterpreting some old recordings and working methods. The night before her first piano lesson, nine-year-old Janica, a founding member of KY and Jan's sister, sleepwalked into the kitchen and performed a piece on an invisible piano. A version of that tune, Portti & Info (~"Gate & Info"), opens the album. Imagine a religion with a mandatory sunglasses rule. Nurkaton Kirkko (~"Church Without Corners") is where those folks congregate. Samuli Tanner not only made some music and mastered the album but he also let Janderzén try out his yet-to-be-released magical sampler. That tool ended up adding color throughout the album. Rajujen Aikojen Taverna (~"Hard Times Tavern") was made by Dialect using a folder of sounds pulled from the KY 4-track tape archives, some acoustic guitar and a fine selection of "secret sauces".

The secret sauces are more or less the main instruments on this album. Everyone involved offers their own idiosyncratic approach to sound, testing what Kemialliset Ystävät could become after three decades. Many collaborators return (Paul Wilson, Jussi Lehtisalo, Èlg, Islaja, Milo Linnovaara). Some fellow lifers join in for the first time (Ben Chasny, id m theft able, Fleshtone Aura, Teemu Markkula).

The birth of Joskussaaret is tied to the place where Kemialliset Ystävät began: the Nekala suburb of Tampere. Most of the music was collaged at Anderzén's new studio, located in the same building where he went to primary school, only a stone's throw away from where the group got started. The album is co-released by Puro Recordings and Vauva, both Nekala-based independent labels.

Did Beethoven really say "music is the electrical soil in which the spirit lives, thinks and invents"? Joskussaaret is a place of re-enchantment built on electrical soil just like that.

LIYL: Aumgn, The Animals Film, Lee is Free, Eros in Arabia.