Ufomammut in Helsinki, Kuudes Linja - 8th Sep 2010

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I discovered some time ago the fabulous music of Ufomammut, and was pleased to learn they were giving concerts in Finland. There was a full house audience for this sold out concert in club Kuudes Linja, and tension was high as the musicians walked on stage during Hawkwind’s “Born to Go”. The whole “Eve” album was performed, after starting the set first with a tune presenting the sonic elements of the group. These ranged from growing waves of feeling with cosmic ambiences, to heavy doom/stoner metal passages, illuminated with from both projected film and light effects.
 After opening blasts the band started to handle the evening’s main sonic feature, and realization of the power of the film was strengthened. Heavier notes associated with the burning sun illuminating the natural “paradise” visuals lead to quiet, mysterious chord weavings. Moon and symbols relating to original sin morphed to cosmologic themes, preceding the first longer heavier passage of the original composition, visualized as a deluge sequence. The long performance consisted from quite small amount of elements, but created an interesting entirety with voluptuous tension creation and release constructions, helped by hypnotic-oriented listening abilities and neat visuals. The waves of sludge metal flushed the attending voyagers to scenes of biologic realms and to scientific and militaristic manifestations of mankind, which I interpreted as the “original sin” of humanity, moving forward in space-time trough the “sexual sin”, allowing the continuity of man’s presence doing his elevated campaigns in the world.

I was keen to see how the wide sound is created by a trio, but couldn’t totally see what the musicians were doing from the rear position at the audience. Bass player did quite much reverb echoed soundscapes in sequences where rhythm was more stagnant, waiting the upcoming outburst. In some points he kneeled to operate something, and I believe there were some tapes, loops or pedals used. Sound wise the bass had quite round, soft and low frequent tones, which were kicked with treble and attack in heavier riff phases. Guitar occupied more raw and higher tone levels, producing very dirty feedback distortions among wonderfully rolling stoner passages. Drummer was observing vigilantly the guitarists, who built the initial positions for riffs with patience, leading to catharsis of appealing rhythm sequences. I also liked the minimal vocals, which were heavily echo-treated. I can appreciate the growls too, but preferred this solution more. Volume was loud, but not unbearable, and overall the presence of the instruments concluded to very enjoyable and exiting end resolution. 
 The surreal background film was constructed from visions of cosmologic subjects (the sun of creation, moon of mysticism), nature flicks residing in religious context (snakes and such), elementary illustrations (fires of hell, biblical floods), war films with nuclear blasts, and of course biological images ranging from medical scans of human innards to sex film clips. The flow of visual themes was synchronized neatly to the phases of music, which created an intensive experience with its simple and hypnotic musical elements. Sounds united with abstract visual symbolism allowed one to be elevated with the performance, supported by personal subjective associations. I liked the way how the similar visual themes from macro cosmos (planets, stars) were united with micro cosmos themes (cells, semen), as I think these dimensions squeeze and produce our everyday life dimension, which was also present in the visuals as people, animals, atomic explosions and such. So among dedicated moshing there was also deep cosmologic contemplation going on in the audience.

After the main set there was some more sludge activity and an encore after enthusiastic applauses. I do not know so well the band’s earlier records, so I’m unaware if the tunes outside of the “Eve” album were from previous records, or something new or spontaneous. I got a motivation to study those albums further certainly, and also get more familiar with this kind of music, which appears to be quite popular in Finland. The psychedelic qualities make the music pleasantly free, and the heavy music elements do not contain very fast machine gun rhythms, but stick to more slower and groovy territories, landing quite well to my personal musical taste. There was an extensive sales table in the bar, containing vinyls, CD’s, cards and fine quality art prints of the Malleus Rock Art Lab, which do the visual design for this and many other great bands. These surrealistic jugend-oriented and psych flavored erotic pictures made a great impression to me. So If you are attending to the Ufomammut concerts, I would recommend some extra cash with you if the lure of available items might get unbearable.

Edit: Edited pics

Edited by Eetu Pellonpaa - May 12 2017 at 02:45

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Eetu Pellonpaa Members Profile Send Private Message Find Members Posts Add to Buddy List Reviewer page Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator Joined: June 17 2005 Location: Finland Status: Offline Points: 4828	Topic: Ufomammut in Helsinki, Kuudes Linja - 8th Sep 2010 Posted: October 05 2010 at 08:34
	I discovered some time ago the fabulous music of Ufomammut, and was pleased to learn they were giving concerts in Finland. There was a full house audience for this sold out concert in club Kuudes Linja, and tension was high as the musicians walked on stage during Hawkwind’s “Born to Go”. The whole “Eve” album was performed, after starting the set first with a tune presenting the sonic elements of the group. These ranged from growing waves of feeling with cosmic ambiences, to heavy doom/stoner metal passages, illuminated with from both projected film and light effects. After opening blasts the band started to handle the evening’s main sonic feature, and realization of the power of the film was strengthened. Heavier notes associated with the burning sun illuminating the natural “paradise” visuals lead to quiet, mysterious chord weavings. Moon and symbols relating to original sin morphed to cosmologic themes, preceding the first longer heavier passage of the original composition, visualized as a deluge sequence. The long performance consisted from quite small amount of elements, but created an interesting entirety with voluptuous tension creation and release constructions, helped by hypnotic-oriented listening abilities and neat visuals. The waves of sludge metal flushed the attending voyagers to scenes of biologic realms and to scientific and militaristic manifestations of mankind, which I interpreted as the “original sin” of humanity, moving forward in space-time trough the “sexual sin”, allowing the continuity of man’s presence doing his elevated campaigns in the world. I was keen to see how the wide sound is created by a trio, but couldn’t totally see what the musicians were doing from the rear position at the audience. Bass player did quite much reverb echoed soundscapes in sequences where rhythm was more stagnant, waiting the upcoming outburst. In some points he kneeled to operate something, and I believe there were some tapes, loops or pedals used. Sound wise the bass had quite round, soft and low frequent tones, which were kicked with treble and attack in heavier riff phases. Guitar occupied more raw and higher tone levels, producing very dirty feedback distortions among wonderfully rolling stoner passages. Drummer was observing vigilantly the guitarists, who built the initial positions for riffs with patience, leading to catharsis of appealing rhythm sequences. I also liked the minimal vocals, which were heavily echo-treated. I can appreciate the growls too, but preferred this solution more. Volume was loud, but not unbearable, and overall the presence of the instruments concluded to very enjoyable and exiting end resolution. The surreal background film was constructed from visions of cosmologic subjects (the sun of creation, moon of mysticism), nature flicks residing in religious context (snakes and such), elementary illustrations (fires of hell, biblical floods), war films with nuclear blasts, and of course biological images ranging from medical scans of human innards to sex film clips. The flow of visual themes was synchronized neatly to the phases of music, which created an intensive experience with its simple and hypnotic musical elements. Sounds united with abstract visual symbolism allowed one to be elevated with the performance, supported by personal subjective associations. I liked the way how the similar visual themes from macro cosmos (planets, stars) were united with micro cosmos themes (cells, semen), as I think these dimensions squeeze and produce our everyday life dimension, which was also present in the visuals as people, animals, atomic explosions and such. So among dedicated moshing there was also deep cosmologic contemplation going on in the audience. After the main set there was some more sludge activity and an encore after enthusiastic applauses. I do not know so well the band’s earlier records, so I’m unaware if the tunes outside of the “Eve” album were from previous records, or something new or spontaneous. I got a motivation to study those albums further certainly, and also get more familiar with this kind of music, which appears to be quite popular in Finland. The psychedelic qualities make the music pleasantly free, and the heavy music elements do not contain very fast machine gun rhythms, but stick to more slower and groovy territories, landing quite well to my personal musical taste. There was an extensive sales table in the bar, containing vinyls, CD’s, cards and fine quality art prints of the Malleus Rock Art Lab, which do the visual design for this and many other great bands. These surrealistic jugend-oriented and psych flavored erotic pictures made a great impression to me. So If you are attending to the Ufomammut concerts, I would recommend some extra cash with you if the lure of available items might get unbearable. Edit: Edited pics Edited by Eetu Pellonpaa - May 12 2017 at 02:45