100 copies limited edition Finnish sound artist Juho Toivonen’s latest release, Taivaskanava, is an evocative exploration of sonic atmospheres and liminal spaces. Released on cassette by Grapefruit Records, this composition employs a sparse yet intimate palette—piano, acoustic guitar, tape loops, and ethereal vocals—to create a soundscape that feels at once deeply grounded in materiality and profoundly otherworldly. The title itself is rich with meaning, offering an interpretive framework through which we can begin to understand the work's layered complexity.
In Finnish, “taivas” holds a dual meaning, signifying both “heaven” and “sky,” blurring the lines between the divine and the celestial. Paired with “kanava,” meaning “channel” or “canal,” the title Taivaskanava translates roughly to "sky channel" or "heaven’s channel." The image conjured here is one of mediation—between earthly realms and the metaphysical, between human perception and the ineffable. It suggests that the work is not merely a sonic artifact but a portal, a space through which listeners might engage in a process of transcendence or spiritual attunement.
Conceptually, Taivaskanava operates as a meditation on the idea of channeling—both in the metaphysical sense of accessing higher planes of existence, and in the sonic sense of navigating through different frequencies or layers of sound. The notion of "skipping channels" is crucial here, as the work does not settle into any one sonic identity for too long. Instead, it moves fluidly between states, embodying the elusive and fleeting nature of transcendental experiences. There is a ruggedness to this sonic movement, a refusal to smooth over the cracks and fissures that appear as one oscillates between the terrestrial and the celestial.
The cassette format itself plays a significant role in shaping the aesthetic and experiential qualities of the work. Tapes being inherently ephemeral; they degrade over time, their fidelity eroding with each playback. In this sense, Toivonen’s choice of medium aligns with the themes of temporality and decay that permeate Taivaskanava. The physicality of the cassette—its material vulnerability—becomes a metaphor for the fragility of perception, the impossibility of fully grasping the divine, the eternal, or the infinite.
Taivaskanava is an ambitious and deeply affecting work that engages with themes of time, spirituality, and the limits of human perception. Toivonen’s delicate interplay of acoustic and electronic elements, coupled with his subtle manipulation of sound and silence, creates a work that feels both meditative and disorienting. It invites the listener into a space where the boundaries between the physical and the metaphysical blur, and where sound becomes a vehicle for exploring the vast, unknowable spaces of the sky, of heaven, and of the self. Through its fragmented, recursive structure, Taivaskanava evokes a sense of being out of time, caught between worlds—an auditory "channel" that gestures toward the divine without ever fully arriving.
