Over the past two decades, Finnish experimental cooperative Kemialliset Ystävät have mesmerized and puzzled listeners with a varied string of CD, LP, cassette, and digital releases. The obscure enclave led by Jan Anderzén specializes in pieces carefully assembled from samples and snippets of improvisations. Woven into these tapestries are rough-hewn scraps of melody that blur the distinction between acoustic and electronic sound; it’s often impossible to differentiate a synth lead from a shrill reed instrument, or a grainy field recording from an overblown drum machine. When it becomes futile to attempt to catalog the source material, Kemialliset’s songs come across as uninterrupted streams of raw, constantly unfolding texture—as willfully dizzying and deceptive in their syntax as a film montage.
More so than on any previous release, Alas Rattoisaa Virtaa, the group’s latest full-length, finds them working primarily with identifiably electronic sounds. The sonic palette and approach are reminiscent of collagists such as Ground Zero and Black Dice, where free-floating noise objects coalesce into loose, slushy grooves and fall out of them just as quickly. Here, Anderzén and company sometimes indulge in full-on synth-scapes without their usual balance of hand-drum loops, harmonized Scandinavian bagpipes, or guitar blasts. “Roiske Ruudukolla”, a pointillistic exercise for MIDI orchestral instruments, Jean-Michel Jarre arpeggiators, and wordless vocals phased out into digital gravel, is particularly surprising. The aesthetic is not far off the avant-Muzak pastiches of James Ferraro. When put up against the recorder and balalaika trimmings of earlier KY albums (see 2002’s Kellari Juniversumi), the contrast is staggering.
Kemialliset’s approach to layering incongruous and damaged sound artifacts is uncompromising, but the music is never outright abrasive. Even the chunkiest sine waves are pacified by a bit of reverb or ambience. The clever sequencing also contributes to the record's relative smoothness, or at least helps blunt some rough edges. Anderzén expertly masks cuts and fades, creating form out of chaos like a young, circuit-bending Teo Macero. “Vettä Yarahille”, in particular, is remarkably sutured, morphing from skeletal, handclap-driven R&B into a denouement of birdsong and voices speaking in tongues (think the “Cloven Theater” of the Sun City Girls).
Despite these diplomatic gestures toward establishing unity and balance, Alas Rattoisaa Virtaa is never a passive listen. If we dare to nod our head to a muted Terry Riley-like melodic loop, some far-off siren or blockade of detuned synths always disturbs the idyll. Dialectic and disruption aren't ornamental techniques for Kemialliset—they're the central organizational principles of the group's music, keeping the project from becoming too scattered and less deserving of our undivided attention.
