by Heather Henderson
[published in Snowbound, Winter 2001]
At Kaapelitehdas, the old cable factory by the water, the crowd is assembling. Yuppies dressed expensively in black, middle-aged couples, students with colorful hair, knots of young girls – a sample of Ismo Alanko's wide-ranging fan base. He's the most famous homegrown rock star in Finland, his career extending back to the early '80s when he fronted the punkish band Hassisen Kone [Hassinen's machine]. Since then he has ranged freely across several genres, including psychedelia, techno dance music, mainstream pop, and a quirky kind of balladry that verges on the art-song. His new project, Labra [lab], is a stage production created with his latest band, Ismo Alanko Säätiö [Ismo Alanko Foundation] and his friend, designer Stefan Lindfors. At the moment, it's the talk of Helsinki. The show's short run is already sold out.
Yet nobody is quite sure what they're going to see. All they know is that it's something unique, not the usual rock concert. Even the creators themselves find it difficult to describe – in interviews they've called it variously "a pagan ritual" and "a performance". Apparently Alanko started out with a religious motif in mind, since he asked Lindfors to build a church for the performance space, but the original title Messu [mass] has been dropped. Advertisements are asking, "Is this a church or a garden of nutcases?" The show's logo is appropriate: a flaming backwards question-mark.
Showtime nears. We're let into a cavernous space that houses an egg-like dome, glowing with light. It could well be a futuristic sort of church, but its shape suggests something more ancient than Christianity: the egg from which the world is hatched in the cosmology of the Kalevala. But as we enter through a section that has been pulled aside, we see that the structure is made of heavy steel, and suddenly it resembles a spaceship.
When we're all inside, seated row upon row up the steep walls (the egg only holds a couple of hundred people), the entrance is pushed closed and the lights go down. For several moments we sit in the gloom, some illumination coming through the translucent skin. We look around and get our bearings. Everyone is crammed close to each other on steel shelves. The place is taking on a primitive, communal feel – it might be a native sweatlodge or a Stone Age barrow. It doesn't look big enough to house a rock show. There's a small round floor in the center which could be a stage, but it doesn't seem possible that a six-man band could fit on it.
Through a long tubelike contraption hanging from the ceiling, two dancers are lowered on cables. As they extract themselves from the tube, it's as if they're being born. A male and a female, the dancers are dressed in industrial-looking jumpsuits. They're impassive and move like robots. Alanko enters the egg. Straw-blond and slanted-eyed, he looks like a wise elf. He begins to sing. A spell is cast that continues unbroken until the end.
As the music unfolds and the musicians come into the egg, we can see where they will go: anywhere they can find space. They pick their way through the narrow aisles while playing their instruments. Thanks to the magic of wireless mikes, they're free to roam all over the place, the exception being the drummer Marko Timonen, who is up above our heads on a catwalk with his drum kit. Up there with him is a chorus of several women singers, visible only as silhouettes. Their witchy voices are reminiscent of Värttinä.
The Säätiö band members and Alanko developed the music in improvisation sessions. The collaboration has resulted in a fascinating blend of styles, from rock to pop to melodious ballads. Some tunes have a "world music" flavor, with African, Latin and Middle Eastern sounds bubbling up from the mix. The instrumentation is interesting, different from the typical rock band. Teho Majamäki's percussion, marimba and vibraphone and Kimmo Pohjonen's accordion are prominent. There are even a few traditional-sounding folk tunes performed a cappella by the womens' chorus.
I can't tell what any of the songs are about – unencumbered by a knowledge of Finnish, I hear the words only as part of the music – but they sound great. Alanko's voice is amazing. He can slide from a deep black-coffee rumble to a pure, sweet high note. He's an odd sort of rocker, like Elvis Costello in the way that he shifts gears easily between old-fashioned pop tunes and full-throttle rock. The Säätiö musicians are his Attractions, a tight, expert band that can carry him over any terrain.
Aside from the egg itself, and the dancers who descend from on high, the "special effects" are minimal – there are no pyrotechnics or other gimmicks. The music and the performances create the spectacle. Throughout the show, the band is constantly in motion, almost as active as the dancers. The most physical of the musicians is Pohjonen, who sprints and leaps around with apparent ease while strapped into a big five-row accordion. At one point he has a confrontation with the male dancer, who is circling him and glaring at him. Pohjonen begins to turn in place, first slowly, then faster and faster, until he's spinning like a Sufi dervish, playing all the while. (Don't try this at home, kids.) It's an electrifying moment.
One of the wackier numbers in the show is "email.internet.seksi.seksi.seksi", a crazy dance which ends with the dancers and Alanko and the band all climbing into a big writhing heap, singing and playing and waving their feet in the air as they sing "email internet seksi seksi seksi!" It's a bizarre scene, but hilarious. The finale is equally madcap, a mock-folk dance with four of the female singers playing toy accordions and dancing with the musicians. It gets rough-and-tumble – at one point Pohjonen gets one of the girls in a headlock, while somehow continuing to play – and then peaks in an riotous ending.
As they climb down from their perches and exit the egg, the people in the audience look pleased, even exhilarated. In the '60s, Labra would probably be called a "happening". So what's it all about? Good question. There seems to be an evolution from the beginning, where the two dancers are born silently into the egg, to the finale where everyone is crowded onto the small stage, playing and singing like maniacs. Perhaps the dancers are animated and brought into human society through exposure to the music. But it's hard to tell. At first I think it's only because I don't understand the lyrics, but when I ask some Finns about it, they're not sure either. According to them, there's no particular story or theme portrayed. It's "just music". Despite all the hype surrounding the show, it doesn't appear to be too wrapped up in symbolism or seriousness. The creators were wise not to cling tightly to a specific concept. The improvisational spirit is captured in the loosely-structured, freewheeling nature of the show, and may be a statement in itself: music is not only artistic expression, but a social interaction. Perhaps it's even a form of play.
This summer, the Labra CD was released, reshuffled for the album format and entitled Sisäinen Solarium [inner solarium]. A few tunes have been dropped (including the chorus' folk tunes), while a few have been added. With the help of a few Finnish friends who translate for me, I get a glimpse into the meaning of the lyrics.
The title track, "Sisäinen Solarium", is a hit on the Finnish charts. It's smooth, shimmery pop with a dash of '60s glamour, like a theme from a Finnish James Bond movie. The lyrics liken fading love to a greenhouse where the lights are flickering out:
again
scream the fluorescent tubes
change
them, change them, change them
it's
the wrong season
change
it, change it, change it
the
young love doesn't glow
change it, change it, change it
"Kyrskainen Hyvätyinen" turns out to be untranslatable (when I asked a friend what the title meant, he replied "What does 'yogiberra' mean?"). The song is a kind of rap made up of nonsense poetry, wordplay riffing on the vowel-rich sounds of the Finnish language. It's a river of syllables bouncing off one another. A sample:
[merchandise fishsuit yourgroin ishurting badmanners coming sturdy help]
"Kosovo" is a long tune that starts off slow and gloomy, almost too slow, but then it picks up speed and gets into a hypnotic groove, thanks to Jussi Kinnunen's relentless bass line. "Datsun" is another long, slow one, perhaps more rewarding. It has a wistful grace. Pohjonen's accordion sets the mood very effectively. Alanko has said that the song is about his youth in Joensuu:
a
bad old Datsun is quiet
Pena
sleeps on the seat sighing
everyone
sees it
tonight
we didn't get a woman
tonight
we didn't get beaten up either
which
amuses…
a
shy smile lingers on a face
a
piece of a boy cleaves for a girl
only
a small piece
the
girl's hopes dance in the wind
the
boy in the middle of a field on his knees
seaching
for god
the
earth underneath the feet disappears
the
boy staggers
into
his grave now already falls
the
bar closes
in
replacement a new one opens
the
group scatters
the
magic vanishes
again
we're remembered
the
dreams wait
stay
waiting
time
carries
the
dreams wait
waiting they will keep
"Paha Silmä" [evil eye] is a Beatle-ish pop tune. Eastern sounds suggest George Harrison; the kick-ass rock guitar chorus is pure John Lennon. This is followed by the earsplitting "T", in which the band transforms itself into a hardcore garage band, the accordion snarling just as loud as the guitars. It seems like another reminiscence, a throwback to Alanko's punk period. He screams over and over, "Why can't I be allowed to do anything!" Read as a parody of childish rock-star posturing, it's wickedly funny.
"Sana Leijui" [a word hovered] is described by Alanko as "a basic song, the mother song". The opening tune in the stage show, it's a mysterious lullaby:
a
word hovered, a word swayed
a
word floated on the waves
came
second, came third
came
congestions in the morning
nightingale,
nightingale
I
don't know you anymore
nightingale,
nightingale
I
can't hear you anymore
I
can only hear a restful bone creaking
I
can only hear tomorrow panting
the
most beautiful heroes were swallowed up by the
earth
the
greatest swindlers swore revenge…
I
ask you
create
your picture and create your words
and
create this story
create
me, create!
create me, create!
A similar mellowness is found in "Ehkäpä elämä onkin vain sitä miltä tuntuu" [maybe life is just what it seems]. Alanko drifts dreamily, accompanied by acoustic guitar and marimba.
The last track on the CD – after a minute of silence, added to give the listener time to adjust – is "Sampo", a nine-minute instrumental piece. Weird female voices mingle with drums and percussion in a pagan dance laced with Alanko's ominous cello.
It doesn't have the impact of the stage show, but even so, Sisäinen Solarium packs a lot of dazzle. It'll be interesting to see what Alanko and his Säätiö can come up with next.
Ismo Alanko (at Poko Records)
Sisäinen Solarium site (at Poko Records)
Kati's Ismo Alanko
Säätiö site (in English)
Stefan Lindfors (his official site)
Digelius Nordic Gallery: Finland (online mail-order source for Sisäinen Solarium and other hard-to-find Finnish music)
Thanks to Kati Kemppinen,
Henry Majander, and Markus R. for their translations and assistance in
preparing this article.