UTON – alitaju ylimina

(LP, Dekorder)

I could have used the same intro here, that I wrote for the Black To Comm / Aosuke –split album also on Dekorder, but one always comes first as long as we live in a dimension that is dominated by time. But without time there would be no music, so let’s be glad that we are able to not only percieve the fourth dimension but to also grace it and adorn it with sounds and their managed evolution. Hah, calling music the “managed evolution of sound in realtime” is way too over the top for me, actually, but then Uton is also not easy to get a grip on. So, please read that mentioned intro first and then come back here to read about Uton.

Jani Hirvonen is a long standing, well known avantgarde / underground musician / experimenter from Finland. You can see right away from the slashes being used in this description that allow for at least four different variations that it is not easy to measure him up. “alitaju ylimina” contains all kinds of weird drones, noise outbursts, ecstasy and mysticism, psychedelia and free jazz, multi instrumentalism and manipulation of sounds and a lot more. Can you imagine what this guy’s extended discography sounds like? He has released dozens of CDs, CDRs and tapes and has collaborated with anybody that found his way into the woods where this ghost resides.

A certain kind of inner spirituality seems to play an important role in Uton’s music. Not only because of the, probably mostly cliché, reclusiveness of the Finnish and the therefore attributed closeness to nature and the endless and dangerous wilderness of the Finnish outlands, but also because his songs tend to turn into manic chants and magic disruptions. Crying vocals of shamanic loops with fitting percussion feeding itself into a frenzy and crashing percussions mixed with echoing noises and deep sounds that reverb through what might be time and space – didn’t we mention time as being really important in the beginning? – and far away in both.

The colourful and intriguing cover gives away a sort of earth spirit sentiment, with a goldike creature towering above a stylized earth globe, blowing flames downwards to the surface and loosening the widely spun connections between earth and the heavens. (the foldout cover is shown above turned sideways – just drop your head to the right and you can get a glimpse of all its glory.) This is contrasted by a wild, energetic black and white drawings that are somewhere between traditional Japanese paintings and a psychotic drug attack. To me it looks like nightly paintings of a nightmare that played in a wood, with nothing much more in memory but the fierceness of the trees.

One thing is for sure though, there is not a lot on this planet that is even closely comparable to the unique wisdom and vision of Uton.