Uton has returned to native Finland after a sojourn in France, and triumphantly returned to the vinyl medium with this impending double-LP release. Four side-long tracks on 180g black vinyl, 250 copies. Uton’s modus operandi should be familiar to fans of the genre of psychedelic-tinged noise now long-flowing out of the Finnish underground. Upon first blush, the music is a sticky, feverish melange of electric and acoustic errata; howling, quivering— overwhelming. The word “feverish” is used advisedly— it really does evoke the sensation of running a slight fever. Eventually, one finds oneself adjusting, however, to the sensory overload, and thence becoming more attuned to the gradualism of the inexorable flux and change of the gestalt sonic field. The effect is occasionally reminiscent, curiously enough, of Steve Reich’s early tape works, albeit with a much more colorful palette— this was one listener’s experience, anyway. The liner quote from the writings of Marcus Aurelius seems to chime with these kinds of themes. The black and white outer sleeve belies the rainbow collage of the inner gatefold. A gorgeous and major release in a super-deluxe edition.
From the sleeve:
"The story of this album, and also Uton, is about the human mind connecting to the unknown forces of the universe (and vice versa). Human mind doesn’t have a form of human itself, but also the form of the formless. That’s how we are with the eternal space, all and nothing included. Whatever the form is, it’s always changing and moving, like the life itself.“
'Observe always that everything is the result of a change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as the change existing forms and to make new ones like them.'
- Meditations. iv. 26
- Marcus Aurelius”
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