Club Furies

Raami Collective prostrates itself on three fundamental elements: versatility, purity, and unity. “We love old school and embrace new school. It’s about sharing emotions and love through music.” That is the mantra of this collective, based in Finland. A little over a year ago they presented their first Various Artists Compilation, with eight tracks. Four more volumes have followed, each one adding one or a couple of more songs, until reaching the fifth installment, featuring eleven original tracks.

Electrifying and vibrant, subtly nostalgic and with retro anime flashes, they break out in idyllic sound deltas, full of green meadows and a whole future and panorama that open with Kitkatone and Empath‘s track, Concordia – the union between the present and the past in sound, which starts from a bigger concept, from Raami‘s.

The second track, by OLPPK, delves into the sensations evoked by the beginning, only that it deepens them. In other sound tracks, more full of deep waters and fresh caves, filled with starry nights and throbbing cities. Placidity made sound that reaches the idyll and a feeling of completeness, with a beautiful sound design and overflowing feelings. Sumus manages to go deeper in this compilation.

Oscar Wild and his track Hope soundtrack that modern sensation and attitude: hope as a way of existing in today’s society. And it is a hope rooted in the certainty of what is to come. His sounds are incipient, but also reassuring and well carried by the sound design. His sonic structures allow for variations in intensity that open the space for a future -inherently uncertain- that is comfortable in the present.

Synthiose is a symbiosis of minimalist, healing rhythms and analog synth harmonies. Behind Synthiose are two creative and curious minds, Jarkko and Loviisa. Their track Glimpse for this fifth installment is what would happen if a fleeting event were extended in time. More so if that time extends to infinity. So a momentary time becomes a perennial time in the sound of this track – don’t you see the beauty of that conversion in the sound art of this song?

Jarkko has musical roots in deep, minimal, and hypnotic techno. His other passions are cycling, cooking, and synthesizers. In Memory Banks, he manages to realize another existential concreteness in sound: how to store memory in sound? Through subtle rhythms that take us to the past and with sound structures that give it a place in the present and manage to be remembered.

These memory banks will store whatever they have to store in the ethereal character of memory, which in sound is achieved through the meticulous compilation of sound layers.

Lasse makes a transition to brilliant techno that activates the sonorous latencies poured so far. Submerged in sonorous enchantments of difficult antidote, Lowlight is the poison that we need to leave the lights of the Eden that subsumed us. If you notice the name already has something of it: dim light to leave progressively, not abruptly.

And as the track progresses, so does the rhythm and our heartbeat accelerates. A curatorship that shows to know what it does in the arrangement of tracks within this selection – not everyone knows how to do it, if at all. Lowlight that becomes thick light, able to illuminate the entire dance floor and the body of the dancers.

Jarkko and Ukko perform a sort of synthesis in their track Sörnäisistä Vallilaan, which sounds like dreamy places, namely fresh green meadows, surrounded by full rivers and dense trees, and at the same time like effervescent underground clubs. With transitions and rhythmic peaks and valleys, the track embodies the latter; but its aura emphasizes the former.

A synthesis and a retrospective of this release that sees its climax and if anything also its decline. This does not detract in any way from what follows: it might even enhance it – haven’t you seen the sunsets in Finland?

Oscar Wild returns for a second track, Velour Panther, full of velvety electricity, very deep and bright rhythms, as well as well cared atmospheres, perfected with artistic precision. The panther, wild as it is, undergoes mediations in sound to coat itself in velvet that also covers a night of unparalleled sophistications. The sunset dresses up.

Jarkko also returns for a second track, only this time with his alias Uno Technopuro. A techno overlay of his sound, which is simply spectacular. And here I allow myself to start tackling a synthesis of this release. This track and the previous ones, are the sonic climax of this release, which could not be without the first tracks that made it possible.

One smells a very fine thread, full of nuances and varied sounds – doing justice to the art form, namely, finding novelty in the established. This speaks of an excellent curatorship, but also of a formidable performance by the artists, who with their sound manage to form a heterogeneous identity. Repeat is a way of saying “Finish this release and play it again”. Indeed, this track is a fundamental highlight of this release.

Oscar Wild completes his trilogy of tracks with Vivid, a spring-like trace, full of scattered percussions and a relaxed attitude. It is an existential parenthesis in this whole release, which shows us that other possibilities are possible. An aufhebung that couples the previous environment in a different one, that contains it.

The dance at this moment is placed in morning afters or afternoons under the radiant sun. With impressive freshness it makes us float in sonorous clouds that walk us all over the dancefloor. This track proves that many dancefloors are possible simultaneously, and that the sunset is just as impressive as its immediate past.

Those who open are those who close as well. The curtain is brought to a close by Empath and Kitkatone‘s Last Exit. The sound is coated in metallic and fearless nostalgia, giving way to striking dualities. In its becoming, the versatility of the sound and the elements of its sonic layers allow for multiple possibilities and visual correlates rich in content. This is our second synthesis of this release. The sound plays constantly with silence, flirting with John Cage and his sonic vision of noise.

Label: Raami Collective
Artists: Varios Artists
Title: Raami 005
Catalog:

Release Date: June 21st. 2024
Streaming: Spotify | SoundCloud

Tracklist
1. Kitkatone & Empath – Concordia
2. OLPK – SUMUS
3. Oscar Wild – Hope
4. Synthiose – Glimpse
5. Jarkko – Memory Banks
6. Lasse – Lowlight
7. Jarkko & Ukko – Sörnäisistä Vallilaan
8. Oscar Wild – Velour Panther
9. Uno Technopuro – Repeat
10. Oscar Wild – Vivid
11. Empath & Kitkatone – Last Exit

Raami Collective

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Club Furies

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