We end another intense work week at Nokia House with a drink at the top of Hotel Torni. It only takes 14 stories to have a spectacular view of Helsinki and feel very poignant. Olly’s new album Karhu ja Tiikerini (A Bear and a Tiger) makes it even easier. Music made in and for Finland. The track ‘Break Fast’ is on repeat. Wait for the drop. A gush of optimism like the first wave of heat in the sauna. Days of hyper reflection and visceral heartache.

The screen says “SEXY. Give me a dime so I can phone my mother” and we’re singing Every Breath You Take for the third time because I can’t figure out how to work the remote. Someone knocks the balloons from the ceiling. A man stumbles in with a bottle of whiskey. Someone offers me money to have a threesome. It’s easy to see how things can get carried away.

There are the KTVs where teenagers (mostly girls) go for wholesome fun at the mall after school. And then there are the KTVs where adults (mostly guys) go for “entertainment plus.” We walk passed a strobed-out dance floor and secure one of the private rooms in the back. The room is lined with couches and in the center is a coffee table with an ash tray and a box of tissues. A waiter holds the flashlight in his mouth as he serves us drinks in the dark. If you want additional company, hired club girls are brought in and lined up for the choosing. What happens after that is less formal.

When a Britney Spears video comes up, her cleavage is blurred out. Muslim practices trump others in Malaysia and nudity and sex is censored in all movies. One girl gushes about the scenes she and her friends missed in Titanic but found later on YouTube – him painting her naked, them “making love.” One guy tells me he was shocked when he saw the uncensored version of Basic Instinct. I’m wondering how short the censored version must have been. At the same time as Britney’s bosom crease is blurred on the screen, the guy with the bottle of whiskey is offering me coke, which I politely decline. At one point twelve of us are belting out Hotel California and the Asian in me wants to get best value for this room, so John, Michiel and I stay to the end and sing increasingly ridiculous songs until four in the morning. But it doesn’t end so well for others – earlier that day a guy at a cafe tells me about the seedier side of KTVs and just how dark it can get. “Just last week, in the club upstairs, a Chinese national girl was offered 2000 ringgit to snort a line of coke seven feet long. She did. And then she died.”

Finding old projects is always fun, or at the very least entertaining. While digging through an old external hard drive I found this one which takes me back to a time when I was consumed with kneeling on my apartment floor groping toys into the late hours of the night. This is what happens when design students don’t go to class ha… In 2001, James Reeves, Steve Baker and I holed up and made this stop-motion animation for the fun of it. Construction workers and spacemen build a space station, send faxes, and find friendship, all to a very soupy electronic soundtrack. After all these years this low-fi copy is the only surviving version, but the fuzziness probably adds to its janky charm. Direct YouTube link here.

Low winter sun and Le Soleil Est Pres De Moi by Air makes even riding the bus romantic.

Turku, Finland

If it’s going to be winter, then let it be WINTER. The Big Ship by Brian Eno on repeat while gliding on a train through soft Finnish snow forests.

In 2001 James Reeves, Shawn Lindaberry, Steve Baker and I surrounded ourselves with samplers, guitar pedals, keyboards, flangers, and other toys and made some mellow music to sleep to. Behold ‘Sleep Management’ by Rewind Wonderland.

01 A Deeply Rooted Fear of Trees
02 Professional Impulses
03 Fabric
04 Warm Night by the River
05 When We Were Pedestrian

Track List

1 . Outer Drive
2 . Highland Park
3 . Greektown
4 . Cobo Hall
5 . Woodward Ave
6 . Hart Plaza

“With tracks named ‘Cobo Hall’ and ‘Highland Park’, the inspiration for the Detroit, Detroit EP is obvious: dramatic urban landscapes that are noble, sometimes failed, and very legendary. Aside from the track titles, there are direct nods towards some of Detroit’s other landmarks: the nervous sounds of Ersatz electro ca. 1999, Plastikman’s Muzik melodies, and a touch of Moodymann’s loopy retro-house. There are even a few plain-out dirty Dj Assault moments (see ‘Greektown’). The overall sound, however, is not so obvious: disco crashes into minimal techno, which is fuzzed over with brash synths and firecracker drums and a few skittering high-hats. I’ll lay off the adjectives now, except to say it’s big and raw and very much Detroit.” - KinoSport

Track List

Serif side
a1. Telegram 41
a2. El Lissitzky’s Revenge

San Serif side
b1. Bravo Futura
b2. The Letterpress Express

The silkscreening good times continue… Newsprint posters wheat-pasted in downtown NYC

“Fiercely polished electro with rocked-out soul. Thick driving percussion, lowriding vintage bass for boomin’ systems, and sparkling analogue keyboard lines conjure sharp modernist grids, colorful scenes from tomorrow’s discotheques, robots with dirty minds, and half-forgotten night-drives through Babylon. Candy Chang is remarkably able to glance back at Prince and Cybotron, while keeping her designer’s eye fixed on a new style and sound all her own.” Released in 2003.

“From the hipshakin’ “Letterpress Express”, like a Russ Meyer soundtrack, to the all-in assault of “Bravo Futura”, as always the artwork is incredibly well packaged” – Syntax

“Bubbling stripped down acidic electro with swelling basslines and dark pop moods.” – Sonic Groove

This is what happens when design students don’t go to class ha… In 2001, James Reeves, Steve Baker and I holed up and made this stop-motion animation for the fun of it. Construction workers and spacemen build a space station, send faxes, and find friendship, all to a soupy electronic soundtrack. After all these years this low-fi copy is the only surviving version, but the fuzziness probably adds to its janky charm. Direct YouTube link here.

James made a new mix called Kylmä Musiikki (Finnish for “Cold Music”) that’s really good music to pass out to. Check out the tracklist full of soft and heartbreaking classics from Brian Eno, Oval and DJ Shadow, and download it here!

The “Detroit Detroit” mp3 set includes six new songs that I created for the dance floor. Chock full of milky basslines and catchy counterparts, the tracks range from synthpop to booty bass to disco house to minimal techno. I performed them at the Minimal/Maximal Festival in Grenoble, France and the Destroy All Cars event in NYC. Named after various Detroit locations, the songs also pay homage to the city of automobiles, vacant buildings, and good techno!