microphones in the trees: keijo
Showing posts with label keijo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label keijo. Show all posts

Saturday, November 26, 2011

keijo

"Finnish legend Keijo Virtanen (the voice behind the Rambling Boys, The Free Players, etc.) returns to Cabin Floor with nearly an hour of fried blues. He rolls effortlessly from the sparse disjointed riffing and freakouts of '15 Days' into the solid locked coasting-blues groove of songs like 'With White Woman' and the almost Valentine-like dream of the instrumental title-track. Every song is developed and full. Beautiful howling harmonica wails, dancing clear guitars and the snapping drums keep things exactly where he wants them to be. Edition of 50 tapes in cardstock sleeves with two inserts, one featuring a photo from Keijo." cabin floor esoterica

foto: connor novotny

otro mejor disco de mi vaquero finlandés favorito. six months on exile, folk minimalista y melancólico susurrado ante un micrófono imaginario qu no parece de este mundo

Saturday, June 18, 2011

tulasi

"new ethereal recordings by the finnish duo of Kulkija (Uton, Keijo & The Free Players, Vapaa…) and Kutomo. Waves of flutes, voices and bubbling ambience drifting away on a soft whispered breeze blowing it out into thin cool air." sloow tapes

"this is gorgeous haunting music, easily at atmospheric as the Free Players stuff but with a totally different character. it sounds ancient and ghostly, like forest spirits floating in dense air. Lovely stuff." boa melody bar

collage: fugga

olo olemattomuudessa (mp3 sample)
uusi aika (mp3 sample)
para ir haciendo boca dos discos como dos soles: 

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

rambling boys

"Keijo Virtanen, Jukka Nousiainen, Lauri Puttonen and Sami Virtanen join together to put a spin on the dust bowl ballads of Woody Guthrie. After two incredible lathe cuts, Rambling Boys finally throw down a full album of what were once simple road songs, now pulled apart at their roots and tossed into the basement to be jammed into something completely new and unstoppable. Heady rolling guitar licks, fuzzy harmonica wails and snapping drums drift in and out of each other, locking in perfectly only to split back into the mumbling open." cabin floor esoterica

ain't got no home, de los ilustrísimos rambling boys, ¡por fin! 

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

keijo & jarmo

"We were not tired, but we were cold. We sat on a campfire and started to sing. There was someone at our home who had forgotten us. There was nothing left for us. Some black man sat by us. Or was it a woman? It opened its mouth and did not have any teeth. The song was cold, the song was warm. We were not afraid anymore." ikuisuus

"Finnish artists Keijo & Jarmo sing the most stripped down suicidal traditional blues and folk on Talkin Bout Death Past Gone. I really wonder what inspired this harmonica induced primitive Americana folk in Tampere." undomondo

Monday, September 20, 2010

darren tate

"uk experimentalist Darren Tate unveils his new acid folk persona with a full-length album dedicated to Finnish folk spirit Keijo. This is one of Darren’s most abstract and oddly beautiful releases, with long passages of domestic silence illuminated by bird calls, bells and tinkling percussion... A deeply confounding work." volcanic tongue

"...Late Afternoon finds Tate adopting the beloved Jewelled Antler way of recording out in the wilderness, allowing all of the incidental sounds, manmade and natural, to tread upon whatever musical notes might be generated. Tate doesn't let on to where this recording was made, but it's got something of a natural concrete reverb, it's near an airfield, and it's infested with pigeons...Forest folk minimalism meets field recordings" aquarius 

Monday, June 07, 2010

keijo

"The Finnish free folk elder statesman Keijo Virtanen is back with another album in his vast discography. However, this work is titled "First Time". The album follows his recent output of his own very open approach to blues. But no W. Guthrie covers here, only Keijo's own pieces, with help from friends on two tracks. This is where free folk meets blues in the most beautiful and stunning way. Cardboard sleeve with photocopied collage pieces, hand-stamped cdrs. 100 copies." full of nothing

foto: vamitos

at night, at night, at night....

Thursday, February 18, 2010

keijo

"Keijo's songs draw from country-blues sources, as is often the case with his releases, there's a couple of Woody Guthrie interpretations included here. Harmonicas whine and woe, but also keep up the rhythm of keepin' on. In these songs, people get up early and travel in a land "that used to be your land."..." ikuisuus

quiero viajar por carreteras desiertas con songs of luck de fondo, y rambling around en repeat

Friday, February 12, 2010

there is a place

01. dreaming my life away ~ best coast
02. dreamers ~ edith frost
03. arabian sea ~ high wolf
04. cholita maria ~ vibracathedral orchestra
05. soft story ~ chris forsyth
06. golden dome ~ alexander tucker & decomposed orchestra
07. wind drone song ~ stag hare
08. rainbow ~ valet
09. coast to coast ~ dirty beaches
10. rambling on my mind ~ keijo
11. lift him up, that's all ~ washington phillips
12. radio flyer ~ mark mcguire
13. memo to my son ~ winfred e. eye
14. what a little moonlight can do ~ billie holiday
15. broken stems ~ the oh sees
16. wild ~ john k.
17. of heavy hearts and pocket books ~ lavendirt
18. sugar fix ~ hungry owl
19. those bedroom eyes ~ john k.

foto: luke byrne

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

keijo

"Maailma syntyy ('The World is Born') derives from the Finnish cosmogonic myth. The way of singing here is Keijo's adaption of the tradition he had learnt in the mid 1990s in Jyväskylä from Ville Elonheimo (who, by turn, had learnt it from his grandmother). For many years Keijo and Ville performed material influenced by ancient poems, such as this tale of creation.

Yön hetkinä ('At The Moments of Night') is named after the moments when the fragments of it were born, at night one is open and able to hear, when it is possible to hear other ways and other things than the day. The soundscape of the piece is like the night, you swell and churn, and sometimes something solid may come up." luovaja

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

keijo & uton

"space ambient drones meets the blues, simple and out there" om ha sva ha ksha ma la va ra yam

"first duo collaboration of keijo & uton. here is seven songs of droney and spacey blues jams, sometimes far away in cosmos, sometimes rockin' the ground again"

armónicas, palos de lluvia, percusiones, pajarindos...no podemos pedir más, el encuentro perfecto y soñado

foto: eylowrance

Monday, February 01, 2010

keijo

"Keijo's songs draw from country-blues sources, as is often the case with his releases, there's a couple of Woody Guthrie interpretations included here. Harmonicas whine and woe, but also keep up the rhythm of keepin' on. In these songs, people get up early and travel in a land "that used to be your land." It's a place where luck comes and goes, just like the people that you meet. The girl knows how to hit you like rolling thunder, the workers are left unpaid (the boss ain't), the ones with no work are standing in the welfare line, your "true love" throws you a suitcase and shows you the door, there's working in the country and in the cities, an anonymous wanderer carries the blues wherever he goes...but it's bigger than just being down: you don't see me worrying, 'cos I've got nothing left to lose. That's why we all share the blues." ikuisuus

todas sus canciones podrían dar vida a un western mágico...don't remember me, don't remember me when i'm gone. y tanto que sí, larga a vida a keijo virtanen!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

keijo

"...for his second release Keijo has produced yet another interesting and lovely album. mesmerizing folk-blues jams and psyched-out atmospheric pieces. "Here They Come" has eight tracks beginning with a baroque sounding "Clear After Midnight" and ending with "At Night" with its lovely field recording of bird song. This album is a very worthy follow up to his "About Around" album. It has all manner of instrumentation and touches on blues and psychedelia with the addition of a few guests including Keijo's cat "Leila". reverb worship

being by! being by! being by!

Saturday, August 01, 2009

the free players


The Free Players are a super-group of featuring members of Finnish free-jazz pawnpins Vapaa, Kheta Hotem, Kundalini Snakes and the venerable Keijo Virtanen. While previous documents of this band exist, this is apparently the more democratic version (no longer is it 'Keijo and the Free Players'), a shift documented by the more accessible sound here.

What we have here is an hour long set of jams that seems more reminiscent of Floyd and the Dead than what we've come to expect from Keijo's previous output. Wild guitar leads and wailing sax (nevermind the space-organ) reveals immediately what cloth this recording has been cut from -- which is to say that The Free Players is a true psychedelic album!" last visible dog

foto: coquinete

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

way of the cross

"American/European big band that unites Dave Nuss of The No-Neck Blues Band with Spencer Clark and James Ferraro of The Skaters alongside Jan Anderzen of Kemialliset Ystavat, Jonna from Kuupuu, Stellar Om Source, Mik Quantius from Embryo and Tiitus Petajaniemi and Jari Koho of Uton/Keijo."

foto: andreyrubanov

Saturday, November 15, 2008

keijo

"Keijo hails from Jyväskylä, Finland, a small town in the north that claims to be the center of the universe. In the sprawling Finnish underground, Keijo is the wise sage who everyone admires. In his 52 years, he has travelled the world twice and seen his share of turmoil. He was nearly killed in a motorcycle accident and still bears a metal plate in his skull as a constant reminder. But these experiences have been essential in shaping the sound world he constructs with his fingertips.

Palla, Blown From Here sees Keijo finally getting the larger audience he deserves. He has worked and collaborated with Finnish acts such as Vapaa, Avarus, and Kheta Hotem. This nine songs sees Keijo taking a more solemn path, reflecting on the quiet moments nature brings, and showcase Keijo's array of talents, including his impressive throat-singing abilities. Palla, Blown From Here is the aural transition of summer into autumn. Over the course of this album, Keijo's soft acoustic compositions flow from him like prose from a poet's pen. The beauty this music exudes is a testament to his life and his work. This is Keijo's world and we are just living in it." digitalis

Thursday, November 06, 2008

keijo


"Keijo Virtanen makes his long distance walk into the stream of folk/countryblues continuum. These marvellously rusty and dusty tracks have been cooking with tender flame in Keijo’s mind&soul for a good while: "When I was just a little boy, I used to just lay down under the blanket (just before falling to sleep) randomly switching the channels of our transistor radio. Under the crunches and washes I also found the new pirate radio stations and there, among the speeches came out the echoing, rhythmic, electric guitar music. Eventually under rock music and British pop music I discovered the sounds of the black people of North America. I felt like those deep singing voices and wailing guitars would somehow also belong to this kind of environment, to rural, middle-of-nowhere Finland, surrounded by wildlife and physical work with our own hands and whatever we may get grown from the land." ikuisuus

Saturday, June 10, 2006

keijo & the free players

keijo & the free players - after at once (digitalis cdr, 2006)

de la inmensa cantidad de discos que publican Keijo Virtanen y sus Free Players (Vapaa / Kheta Hotem), el que más me gusta es After an Once. aunque me deje el cerebro hecho fosfatina de la densidad que llega a alcanzar. excepto Between Blue & Yellow (folk indio, hipnótica percusión tribal, trompetillas en un primer y desenfocado plano) y la canción que cierra el disco, Sword Abandoned (única en la que canta tal y como lo hacía en By the Mountain and Sea, su disco más tradicional y finlandés) todas sobrepasan los diez minutos. free jazz de percusiones primitivas, a veces delicado, a veces sombrío.. y ya en el ecuador After at Once y unos arreglos que van más allá del sonido envolviendo su particular mantra de amor con un velo de psicodelia deslizante y miles y miles de capas de drones fantasmales . pero si hay que darle una matrícula de honor, que sea por Touches, tan intensa que vibra en tus oídos.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

keijo

Keijo - By the Mountains & Sea (Foxglove, 2005)

canciones tradicionales finlandesas sin el más mínimo rastro de producción. Preciso y precioso. Ainhoa dice que si se ha pasado con el bourbon...como siempre derribando mitos :)

"Moves from primitive two-chord grunts through plumes of luminous psychedelic activity and spirit-channelling throat singing that sounds like a Tuvan Mississippi John Hurt’s take on Dylan’s Basement Tapes or Dock Boggs live from the Great Pyramid w/a taste for the guts of Tom Rapp, Jandek and Joseph Spence."

Monday, November 21, 2005

gold leaf branches

Si alguien quisiera saber cómo una música tan árida y desnuda puede llegar a emocionar y a contar tanto acerca de una época, este recopilatorio de tres discos y cincuenta y nueve artistas contiene las pistas. Todas inéditas excepto una (lily, henry, & the willow trees de Marissa Nadler), y la toma en directo de thousand birds de Six Organs of Admittance, mucho más dulce y cristalina que la incluída en Dark Noontide. Hay tanto y tan variado que es imposible desgranar canción a canción todo el contenido de gold leaf branches.. Destacaría you were on my side (guitar) donde Annelies Monseré cambia la distorión y los ruidos metálicos de la versión original por una sencilla guitarra acústica; rune of the moon and endymionel, raga barroco y embriagador de The Gray Field Recordings; todas las reencarnaciones de Brad Rose: The North Sea, The Golden Oaks o cómo reproducir en delicados cantos de aves, guitarras y flautas el sonido de la tierra; no ghosts del James Blackshaw; la búsqueda incansable de las raíces y el auténtico significado del banjo en friday morning de Timothy, The Revelator; el sabor de la exótica Finlandia en Lau Nau y Kuupuu; la preciosa e hipnótica first steps de Stuart Busby, nana dedicada al mar que envuelve y arropa ayudándose de teclados minimales, drones y una trompetilla de feria ....imposible seguir, todas tienen algo, todos son una rara avis, todos son músicos dotados y al tiempo imaginativos..y por eso la idea de reunirlos a todos es tan bonita. Al final la música vuelve a revelarse como el mejor vehículo para atravesar o romper fronteras.

Six Organs of Admittance, Kuupuu, Annelies Monseré, Courtis, Charalambides, Elephant Micah, Wolfmangler, Visitations, James Blackshaw, Hala Strana, Lamppukello, Claypipe, The North Sea, Kulkija, The Magickal Folk of the Faraway Tree, Hertta Lussu, Brothers of the Occult Sisterhood, Terracid, Agitated Radio Pilot, Pefkin, 6majik9, Anvil Salute, Rameses III, The Lost Domain, Keijo, Hush Arbors, The Gray Field Recordings, Stuart Busby, The Juniper Meadows, Snake Oil, Robert Horton, Master QSH, Braspyreet, Xenis Emputae Travelling Band, Silvester Anfang, Lau Nau, The Does, Maniacs Dream, Wood & Wand featuring the Rose, Jani H, Oxblood Reincarnations, The Golden Oaks, Plat Ypus, Drekka, itdreamedtome, Timothy, Revelator, Dead Raven Choir, Snowfoxx, Wax Ghost, Friendly Keys, The Weird Weeds (The Laudable Pus), M. Jarvis & A. Jarvis, Leighton Craig & Eugene Carchesio, Nick Castro (w/ B'eirth), Alligator Crystal Moth, Keijo & the Free Players, Marissa Nadler, Soarwhole, y Mike Tamburo.

foto: marie ek