Also known as Ø, Mika Vainio is one of the most celebrated audio artists of our time, best known as half of the ground-breaking duo Pan Sonic (formerly Panasonic), which he started together with Ilpo Väisänen in 1993. With a background in industrial music and inspired by the creative surge in techno and the illegal raves of the time, the two started recording electronic music, immediately defining a unique style with their first releases on legendary Finnish label Sähkö Recordings. Employing only analogue technology, Panasonic's music consisted of repetitive and minimalistic loops, forgoing song and melodic structures in favour of hypnotic sine wave and rhythm shifts across the entire frequency spectrum. Despite the techno context his music has often been perceived in, Mika Vainio is equally affiliated with the modern art scene. His sound installations have been exhibited in many major museums across the world and he frequently collaborates with other audio and visual artists such as Carsten Nicolai or John Duncan.
This EP is featured in Update #079:
Lauer, Actress, Maya Jane Coles, Lazer Sword
As if to salute the northern hemisphere's arrival of Spring, our virtual shelves have been filled to the brim with fantastic music this month, culminating in today's 100+ new releases.
For our star-studded Essentials we've done our best to narrow down the more...
Mika Vainio's second single for Viennese imprint comfortzone continues in the doomtronica fashion that defined his 2011 album, 'Life (...it Eats You Up)': Distorted, grumbling synth assaults over lo-fi drum computer patterns. Intense!