Merja Kokkonen, better known under her songwriting alias Islaja, hails from Helsinki, Finland. But if you had imagined a more exotic origin for the Norse psych-folk singer-- a stretch of old growth forest, a long-forgotten Eastern Bloc hermitage, or maybe Middle Earth-- you could be forgiven. When Islaja's first album, Meritie, landed on U.S. record store shelves in 2004, it sounded otherworldly-- a strange brew of toy piano plinks, discordant guitar strums, and Kokkonen's haunting, child-like vocals. Even back then, in the heyday of freak-folk and New Weird America, it was peculiar and unique music. These days it's a little easier to pin down where she's hanging out, though: behind a laptop.
Keraaminen Pää, Islaja's fourth record, was recorded on the run-- produced and conceived by Kokkonen while she hopped between Berlin, Helsinki, Grand Popo, and Hong Kong. The acoustic guitars, pump organs, pianos, and field recordings-- key elements of Islaja's earlier work-- are mostly absent here, possibly out of design, possibly out of necessity. After all, it's easier to travel light. Instead, Keraaminen Pää leans heavily on electronics-- icy synth tones, crunchy samples, and abstract gurgles. The music moves at a glacial pace; it grunts and buzzes. Kokkonen's voice, long shrouded in a haze of analog tape hiss, gets a digital facelift here. For the first time, her vocals are clearly and cleanly recorded.
For a record conceived mid-walkabout, it's a moody affair. Imagine a surrealist take on Marianne Faithfull's bleaker work. Feelings of emptiness and obsession are portrayed from strange sidelong angles. "I was at your mercy and mercy was all I lived on/ I was a ceramic head on wooden shoulders," sings Kokkonen on album opener "Joku Toi Radion (Someone Brought a Radio)". On "Dadahuulet (Dada Lips)" necking is reframed as a series of tough Twister moves. "Put hand in their hand, your tongue on their hand, lips on their nape and nose on their neck," she whispers.
Islaja is not the first folkie to embrace electronics-- samplers gave Animal Collective a second wind and Richard Youngs has been ringing squawks and warbles out of his computer for years. But Kokkonen's shift in execution comes with a cost. Where her music once seemed alien-- untethered from time and place-- the cold clicks and hums of Keraaminen Pää come off sounding modern, mechanical, and familiar.
