LEGENDA

" Legenda" is the second album by VERDE, also known as Mika Rintala project (formerly of CIRCLE and EKTROVERDE). His previous CD 'Vuoronumero' was pretty much interesting electronics with an avant edge, not brilliant, but quite promising. This album is quite ambitious: it sees its soundscapes as a logical continuum to 1960s and 1970s wild electronic experiments, krautrock, PINK FLOYD in it's most abstract, and the early twisted NURSE WITH WOUND and THROBBING GRISTLE experiments in analogue electronics. And indeed, here is the krautrock as twisted by the early 80ies industrial scene, the guitar psychedelics of early ASH RA TEMPEL, synthlines of anything analogue, collated together with sounds of babies, people talking, field recordings, cut ups from improvised pieces of music with horns and such. Cosey's guitar playing is also dully copied.

I'm a long time fan of all these but the problem I have with this release is than no matter the exciting points of reference VERDE has no tension builds, structure or dynamics; it stays always a bit too much of a constant freak-out. Nine tracks here, spanning almost eighty minutes, whereas with some editing the CD could have been brilliant and genius at probably half the length. Perhaps Rintala needs to land in earth and look upon his material from a more focused point of view.