lessons
As much as possible: A fortuitous encounter on a sweltering night one summer. In Berlin. A singing and song writing singer/songwriter, two quirky nerds from Finland. Two or three creative crises, hiatus in Buenos Aires. Internet, an unclear pile of analogue synths and - or course - a windowless basement somewhere in Scandinavia. Here's Lessons.
In search for inspiration and fresh air the brothers Samu and Ville Kuukka pause their productions and go to Berlin. The film composers work on their own Ambient/Postrock band The Gentleman Losers and wanted to take a break. They stumble into a concert of Montauk, one of the many aliases of Patrick Sudarski, musician, aesthete and jack of all trades. Sudarski already used to pierce holes into the membranes between noise, kraut, folk and shoegaze with his earlier bands Speed Mountain, A Heart Is An Airport or Palestar. They get into conversation, exchange ideas, but lose each other. When the three take up the thread again, both Kuukkas are back in Helsinki while Sudarski takes his mind off things in South America.
The following winter the three of them spend together in a cheerless basement room without windows yet overflowing of adventurously antiquated drum machines and clunky synthesizers. The introspective approach all three used to follow is turned inside out completely. The specific atmosphere of the room might have played a role. The music becomes loud, scratchy and driving. It is subcooled and distanced as well as brimmed with the absence of daylight. But above all it breathes deeply, confronts midi clock with heartbeat and in that moment noticeably hails from real human beings. Even if they blur in the twilight.
"It was time for a new thing, for all of us", says Sudarski. "This was a natural progression."
