SISTOL: On The Bright Side / Sistol (Remasters & Remakes) (Halo Cyan Records)

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Posted on Sep 16th 2010 01:31 am

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Sistol: On The Bright Side Sistol: Sistol (Remasters & Remakes)

SISTOL
On The Bright Side
PHC04
Halo Cyan Records/Phthalo Records 2010
08 Tracks. 54mins37secs

SISTOL
Sistol (Remasters & Remakes)
PHC02
Halo Cyan Records/Phthalo Records 2010
19 Tracks. 118mins24secs

On The Bright Side: Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD iTunes: DLD

Finnish musician and producer Sasu Ripatti is not one for lounging around and sleeping on his laurels. He juggles quite a wide range of consecutive projects, some his own (Vladislav Delay, Luomo, Uusitalo), others collaborative (Vladislav Delay Quartet, Moritz von Oswald Trio, The Dolls or AGF/Delay, the duo with his life partner Antye Greie-Fuchs), all focussing on different aspects of music. So, the addition of one more is in no way surprising, and neither is it surprising than Sistol has its own identity and language, away from his other projects.

Sistol is not actually a new addition to Ripatti’s ever expanding portfolio, but one that made a short apparition twelve years ago, when he released a very limited collection of ascetic minimal techno on Brooklyn-based Phthalo Records. The project has since been lying dormant to the point of being almost entirely forgotten, but with a new album under his arm, Ripatti is now injecting some life into it again. For those digging his wonderfully complex and airy dub-infused sound as Vladislav Delay, or the pop-tinged vocal disco of Luomo, Sistol might be quite a disorienting affair. Stripping his sound of pretty much everything to leave only linear rhythmic forms and very basic melodies, with little in the way of flourishes, Ripatti investigates his the outter reaches of techno, but much more of the Berlin school (read minimal to the point of near transparency) than of Detroit. Every track is based around a rarefied sound pool, and is built around a set of loops which progress almost imperceptibly, often over the course of a whole piece. Set in its own groove, with no clear correlation to any external element, each one of the eight tracks presented here is, in appearance, extremely monolithic and unemotional. These tracks are primarily designed to induce trance on the dance floor, but trance triggered by repetition and blurred boundaries rather than euphoria. Only album opener (Permission To) Avalanche occasionally flirts with anthemic chorus, and never for very long. The rest of the album goes from the playful Hospital Husband or Fucked-Up Novelty to the radiant title track and the sumptuous grooves of A Better Shore and Funseeker without ever fundamentally changing in aspect.

Conveniently for those who missed it first time round, the original Sistol album has been dusted off, completely remastered and handed out to a fine array of remixers. The album was originally released at just a few hundred copies back in 1999, then again two years later much more widely. If anything, the music on the original album is even more minimal, most tracks being nothing more than a kick drum and a bass motif which can be summed up in a handful of notes. Occasionally, additional components enter the spectrum and linger for a moment without greatly affecting the overall envelop of the track. The pace is also notably faster throughout, especially on tracks such as Hajotus, Haaska, Luomo or Kojo. These extremely dry pieces are very unlike any of Sasu Ripatti’s work. Far from bringing to to life incredibly complex and layered sound formations, even in their most straightforward forms, he assembled here one of the barest and coldest slice of minimal techno.

None of the remixers, which include the likes of Alva Noto, Ike Yard, John Tejada, FaltyDL, DMX Krew or Sutekh to name but a few, dare to venture in such deserted terrains. Instead, they serve up a mix of dubbey techno from Mike Huckaby (Kojo), complex digital processing from Alva Noto (Hac) and Sutekh (Kotka), post acid from DMX Krew (Kelmi), Detroit-infused groove from John Tejada (Kojo), Aki Latvamäki (Kaste) and FaltyDL (Kotka) and even high octane rave electro from DuranDuranDuran (Keno). There is in most cases virtually nothing left of Ripatti’s original pieces, but these offer a much richer alternative to the Spartan versions of the album.

Sistol is perhaps one of Ripatti’s most difficult projects to engage with, as it benefits of none of the textural approach shown under his Vladislav Delay or Luomo guises for instance. Yet, these two records also show how he manages to channel entirely different musical styles into very coherent and credible projects, and how Sistol ultimately proves to be yet another facet of a fascinating musician.

On The Bright Side: 4.4/5 Sistol (Remasters & Remakes): 3.7/5

Sistol (MySpace) | Vladislav Delay | Phthalo Records
On The Bright Side: Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD iTunes: DLD

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