Pekka Airaksinen

2015 restock. The music of of the Finnish experimental music pioneer Pekka Airaksinen has been far ahead of it's time for most of his 40-year long career. His finest recordings from the 60's are more reminiscent of Industrial Music and Noise (which would emerge ten years later) than of the music of his precursors and contemporaries. Later, in the early 80's, few people, if any, were mixing mechanic beats and free jazz like he did. Favourable conditions for this kind of music didn't really exist until the turn of the century, when his music, seemingly in line with contemporary developments in experimental electronica, still sounds absolutely alien and fresh.This compilation, produced by N&B Research Digest for the legendary Finnish label Love Records, is a fairly subjective selection of Pekka Airaksinen's works spanning the years 1968-2003. The second disc of the double set is a selection of commissioned remixes, which aim to find a contemporary context for his work and to expand connections, some of which already existed. For example nurse with Wound namechecked Airaksinen on their famous list of influences that came with their debut LP Chance Meeting On A Dissecting Table Of A Sewing Machine And An Umbrella (1979), while Finland's Es played together with Airaksinen in his first live performance since 1987 at Avanto Helsinki Media Art Festival 2001. The remix artists are: nurse with Wound (UK), Mira Calix (UK), Simon Wickham-Smith (UK), Curd Duca (Austria), Philipp Quehenberger (Austria), Notchnoi Prospekt (Russia), Anton Nikkil (Finland), Es (Finland), Tuomo Ilari Puranen & T.A. Kaukolampi (Finland), Tyrone D.C. Washington (Finland) and Pekka Airaksinen himself