Kemialliset Ystävät - "Kemialliset Ystävät (Untitled)"

Kemialliset Ystävät - Himmeli Kutsuu Minua (Fonal 2007)

Kemialliset Ystävät - Kemialliset Ystävät (Untitled) / Fonal

There are few things I've heard recently as disorienting and miasmic as Kemialliset Ystävät. There are a hundred other ways to start off a review of this group, and in fact several have already been taken: These "chemical friends" are not total unknowns and have already garnered praise in the past from the likes of Dusted (twice) and Fakejazz. Their latest release - either self-titled or untitled depending on whom you ask - is a continuation in the vein of a deep discography that extends back to 1995. The great thing is that there's no shortage of ideas on this record and the way it's patched together as an aural quilt will have you struggling to count off the different groups you think you're hearing.

First, the facts: The group has been working out of Tampere, Finland for many years now. If Wikipedia is to be believed, the band has no less than 40 collective releases (singles, compilations and splits included). Their relationship with Fonal extends back to 2002 with a compilation called Surrounded By Sun, but their first proper effort was the much lauded Kellari Juniversumi. With an ongoing release schedule, 2004's Alkuhärkä becomes the next point of reference. Matthew Wuethrich called it "rampantly eclectic," and there's little doubt that such a fitting description could be bested. How long could the psych-folk mastermind and [nominal] group director Jan Anderzén, a native of Tampere suburb Nekala, go on?

The answer arrives with their third Fonal full-length, and its blistering beauty is as dramatically ambitious, as ardently creative, as relentlessly shape-shifting as ever. The interesting thing is how Anderzén somehow manages to insert the occasional counterweight in a sound that has such a wildly freeform feel to it. Eclectic sounds thrown in just for the sake of being thrown in can work every now and again, but white noise reincarnated as constructive filler is a rare thing to experience. Anderzén and company achieve it as competently as you're likely ever to hear.

So take the opener "He Tulivat Taivaan Aarista," for example. You think its pulsing analog electronic bipping that introduce the album may turn into some minimalist Bpitch banger, but instead it twists and wraps and drives backward full speed behind into the Candyland-gone-awry world of Avey Tare & Kria Brekkan. Throw in a little Black Dice and a slice of doom-folk for the first track alone. It's busy alright, but it's busy in the best possible way.

"Lentavat Sudet" is more Panda Bearish, but already you can see that Animal Collective is an obvious reference point. Still, the horns lend a jazzy feel to this track, and is that a harp? Bells? A xylophone? Chinese flute? Just two minutes in, you won't care. It's already won you over.

As stated earlier though, it would be a lot harder to take this album in from a neophyte or casual listener's perspective if it weren't for some of the more accessible moments (all things relative, of course). "Superhimmeli" is the mid-album stand-out in this regard, its Red Square drumbeat instantly offset by strummed harp and the lo-fi melodies emerging from the frozen wilderness courtesy Kemialliset Ystävät's many friends and not a few synthesizers. The repeated melody will stick with you for the rest of the album, sort of in an Aa kind of way. Tribal with more monk chants and less shrill cries from the jungle.

Still, the masterstroke of it all is the concluding triumvirate of "Kokki, Leipuri, Kylvettaja Ja Taikuri," "Alyvaahtoa," and "Himmeli Kutsuu Minua." The album is a veritable goldmine of found sounds and mind-altering music up to this point, the way these final three songs come together is unequaled on the album. "Kokki..." explores the more folk-based side of things for the duration of its length, but the haunted-house sirens of "Alyvaahtoa" throw any prior expectations of a "cool-down" out the window. Not unlike an OOIOO track, its burbling underbelly adds an extra layer of sound that still allows room for chilling out. That's where "Himmeli Kutsuu Minua" comes in: As probably the most accessible and traditional song on here, its bass-and-tambourine rocking is augmented by Kemialliset Ystävät's idea of the kitchen sink. The echoing chorus mixes with flittering frozen butterflies and all things Eastern to give an esoteric flavor to what otherwise might just've sat as yet another engaging folk song from one of the world's best.

At the moment it's tough to pin down any one psych-folk group as being the best, because so many psych-folk bands are so good, so on top of their game right now, that classifying or ranking is both unfair and unwarranted. We can just love the music and the brilliance of these artists for who (or what?) they are, and Kemialliset Ystävät is a firm statement for pure appreciation. But if we had to pick only one at gunpoint, er... Just pick this album up and you'll see for yourself.