Aaltopiiri

Pan Sonic

Product Details

• Audio CD (January 16, 2001)
• Original Release Date: January 16, 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Mute U.S.
• ASIN: B000056MRU
• Also Available in: Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #213,092 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Track Listings

1. Ensi

2. Vaihtovirta

3. Toisaalta

4. Johdin

5. Kuu

6. Ããnipãã

7. Arvio

8. Liuos

9. Ulottuvuus

10. Hallapyydys

11. Reuna-Alue

12. Valli

13. Kone

14. Johto 3

15. Murskaus

16. Rasite

17. Kierto

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Stark, and stretched out like the frozen tundra of Pan Sonic's native Finland, Aaltopiiri journeys along the strange, twisting paths of a minimalist and intensely ambiguous digital landscape. The band's approach, like on 1999's A, has few connections with traditional concepts of rhythm, instead luxuriating in the ambient netherworlds inhabited by Aphex Twin on sparse records like Selected Ambient Works, Vol. 2, or the music of composer Philip Glass. In seeking out the furthest abyssal reaches of what we call techno, the band sheds all pretense of cohesiveness, reveling in the cold mystery at the heart of ambient music. It is left up to you to fill in the blanks, and that makes this record as good, or as bad, as your own imagination will allow. --Matthew Cooke

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An atom of all stars, March 23, 2001

By	loteq (Regensburg) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Despite some people being of the opinion that Pan Sonic contains a bunch of very creative, perhaps even groundbreaking musicians, I've sometimes rather thought the opposite when listening to some tracks on their early albums such as "Vakio" and "Kulma". My reservation about Pan Sonic's early work comes from the simple fact that sustained, ear-splitting noise and unfriendly test-tones without any concessions to melody (or at least some rhythms) are unfit for human consumption and cannot lead to a good listening experience. OK, so what about their latest album, the 70-minute "Aaltopiiri"? Great headache induction? According to Pan Sonic, the album was recorded at their studio in Barcelona (much closer to the sunny beach than to the Arctic Circle) without any special approach or plan; for the most part the music was even improvised and recorded straight on to tape. Given all these circumstances, it's extremely difficult for me to believe that such a meticulously crafted and varied release as "Aaltopiiri" would be the result of these jam sessions. Pan Sonic no longer betray the sibilant intrusiveness and lack of direction of their early efforts; they have kept their distinctive framework, but at the same time they have reached a new level. It's not just that "Aaltopiiri" has a much stronger cohesive glue than all previous Pan Sonic albums, it's also that even the shorter pieces are fully developed and the record itself sounds excellent due to the dynamic, minimalistic production. It does, however, not become immediately apparent that Pan Sonic have made a great leap forward. The album's first half contains some tracks which should be regarded as 'merely OK', mainly because they repeat some basic ideas of the duo's prior work. "Vaihtovirta", "Johdin", and "Liuos" (each having a running time of six minutes approx.) are three of these 'merely OK' tracks, offering hypnotic 4/4 rhythms and slight hints of synth melody coupled with Pan Sonic-typical background hums and processed feedback, but even in these fairly repetitive pieces one feels that the duo is quite concerned with creating certain atmospheres and moods this time. A highlight in the album's first half is the evocative "Aanipaa", whose intricately processed, disturbing samples are industrial in the true sense of the work: heavily crunching and textured. But it is "Ulottuvuus" where the real 'polar listening adventure' begins: Pan Sonic have not only discovered the world of echo, the have added an explicitly environmental feel and a completely new dimension to their music; it's very fascinating to listen how this metallic scratching and pounding comes and goes, how it echoes around in the distance and decays or becomes gradually replaced by other layers of sound. The 9 1/2-minute "Reuna-Alue" could be the best example of this, opening with something you might hear when you enter a huge, abandoned factory hall and soon giving away to positively entrancing polar soundscapes which are somewhat reminiscent of the stuff Biosphere has done. "Valli" is another one of these emotionally quite resonant pieces; it's perhaps even more creepy than "Reuna-Alue" due to the heavy pounding which could be taken from the soundtrack of a very good horror movie. The closing quintet of tracks heads into another direction and has a compelling dancefloor sharpness to it, along the lines of Aphex Twin's harsher output under the AFX and Caustic Window name. The 1 1/2-minute, tightly structured "Murskaus" is particularly impressive with its crunching frame drums and relentless drive, just as the 6-minute "Kierto". The latter introduces a fairly hard-hitting central beat which is joined by squalls of abrasive digital distortion and feedback. Admittedly, all the new developments in Pan Sonic's music will be noticeable for long-time followers only, but the brilliant ambient pieces on this album and the quite straightforward industrial-dance tracks ensure that there's something for everyone. I would also recommend "Aaltopiiri" as first purchase for the newly interested. Certainly this is Pan Sonic's best album so far.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More than the sum of its parts, January 17, 2001

By	Chuck (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

You know what I love best about Pan Sonic? They are so minimal and so abstract that your mind has to fill in the gaps where the music doesn't exist. For creative people and imaginative people, this is a dream come true. You know what kind of person you are. The kind of person that listens to music and winds up making elaborate music videos or stories in your mind to accompany what you hear. Pan Sonic lets me do that more than any other artist out there today.

As far as this CD goes, it's every bit as good as their other releases. It seems to be somewhere between "A" and their more beat oriented material. It's not quite as atmospheric as "A", but rather it seems to have more sounds and melodies. It's certainly not as beat oriented as something like the Osasto EP, but rather the beats compliment the sounds as opposed to the sound filling the spaces between the beats.

This CD has so much character to it. For something that sounds so mechanical and raw, there truly is a human element to it. Maybe it's the structures, maybe it's the sounds. I don't know. But the CD is filled with personality.

When I listen to this CD (or any Pan Sonic CD) with headphones, I get more of an experiance, creative inspiration, enjoyment and involvement than I do from almost any other artist out there. I truly feel like an active participant when I LISTEN. Not hear, but actually LISTEN. If you do the same thing, you will not be dissapointed.

Amazing.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reverb as a living entity, August 30, 2001

By	Michael Ystad - See all my reviews

I would not advise anyone to do what I did, which was to plug this album into my ears and drift away to sleep on an airplane. Not only did I get weird dreams about being stranded on some automated supply base in the polar regions, but I was awakened near the end of the album by tremendous shrieking blasts of unattenuated feedback. Overall, I like the album a lot. It's not something I need to listen to daily, but I can definetely appreciate it as a work of music. I suppose there are people out there whose musical sensibilities are either so assaulted by conventional stuff or so advanced that this is like the soothing voice of the creator; but to me it's just nothing more or less than good. It reminds me of the pinging and thrumming of some as-yet-undeveloped intelligent tracking system, hijacked by missionaries who have just been to their first rave and who are trying to re-create the experience at a more "appropriate" tempo.