Ismo Laakso - Ofelia (2018)

Such a madness, Ismo Laakso’s Ofelia comes off like a wild pre-echo of Mica Levi, Teresa Winter and Paavoharju on its long overdue release thru Sähkö’s Puu after languishing as a demo CD in a drawer for nearly 20 years, only to be rediscovered last autumn.

In a way that resonates with our most febrile musical dreams, Ofelia sounds like a scrambled radio transmission which modulates with jazz-wise logic and timing between myriad sources, juxtaposing their lopped ends in a spellbinding play of anticipation-baiting, oneiric logic.

One moment we’re listening to an almost machine-like english vocal serrated by radioactive electronics (Translucent), while the next we’re in the midst of sloshing, unsteady breaks and ambient soul vocals joined by angelic, Hassell-style chorales (The Favourites of the Emperor), or disoriented by fusions of Finnish monologues with field recordings and visceral electronics (Koskenhaltija). Soon enough we’re drawn into a surreal scene of baroque and jazz-wise chamber music (Smell), and then what sounds like Charlemagne Palestine duetting with Maja S.K. Ratkje (Ofelia), and never with any kind of explanation or reason for how we got from points A to B. For some folk, that actually probably sounds like a nightmare, but if you’re a bit of weirdo, we reckon that it’s all is going to spin you out in the best sense.