Varropas

I have been listening to some great new releases over the last few days (great band), the new CDr from Aqua Dentata, the forthcoming LP on Harbinger Sound by Small Cruel Party, the latest tape release from Colin Potter on The Tapeworm label and Varropas. All 4 releases have a similar vibe and fit in to the category: What I want to listen to ... now!
Varropas is the Suomi duo Jusso Paaro and Samuli Kyto and apart from a handful of appearances on compilation projects this is their first "full" release. (Please note that I could be completely wrong here). I first heard Varropas on the Hyster Tapes 2010 compilation "Second One" where they filled side two of the cassette with the 28 and a half minute piece "Mols Pa Drift 1978" and that piece is recalled especially on side one of this eponymous album. "Clipperty" has a slow synthesiser start, a sort of keyboards assemble themselves at dawn. Very kraut, very Terry Riley, quite Eno (but what do I know) and then it cuts to a lo-fi home recording of lowering and rising oscillations of looped percussion and a repetitive five note guitar "riff". It creates a very calm and meditative picture, very flowing and hypnotic. It is a great listen, one of those tracks where after the needle leaves the record it has to be placed at the start again.
Varropas LP reminds me a lot of the work of Neil Campbell, especially his "Sol Power" LP that came out about ten years back on the Finnish Lal Lal Lal label. (Is there a connection)?
Side 2 continues to paint the same picture. "Bogdanavin Tektologiya" is built around a three note acoustic guitar loop with a myriad of sounds and effects that shuffle, rattle & roll and loop around the pattern. Rising, falling, morphing. I can hear synthesisers, I can hear penny whistles and Fischer-Price toy glockenspiels ... it's really clever stuff that puts in me in a great mood. (Although the British weather could also be helping at the moment).
"Varropas" sees the first vinyl release from Helsinki based label Hyster Tapes, famed in the past for releasing classic albums on recycled cassettes and charging 1 euro per release. I don't know if this is a "one-off" - it is a collaboration with fellow Suomi-ites Ikuisuus - but Hyster Tapes breaking out onto vinyl can only be a good thing.
Contact Ikuisuus via www.ikuisuus.net or go to Hyster Tapes and write to plaa at www.pcuf.fi and get a copy.