Tummaa

VINYL FORMAT. Finnish composer Sasu Ripatti returns with Tummaa, his first album as Vladislav Delay since 2007's Whistleblower. The new full- length marks a significant shift in emphasis in this acclaimed musician's work, reflecting a renewed interest in jazz and acoustic performance - Tummaa is far more organic and live-sounding than anything he's done before. The album essentially features a live trio - Ripatti, Argentine musician Lucio Capece on clarinet and saxophone, and acclaimed Scottish soundtrack composer and arranger Craig Armstrong on piano and Rhodes. Ripatti set the tone, recording his drum parts and then inviting Capece to his studio to improvise alongside the drums. Armstrong offered recordings of pure solo piano playing he had made for the project. From these two sound sources, Ripatti began composing and arranging, and wrote a whole suite of music.

The results are jaw-dropping. Ripatti is venerated as a master of rhythm and a true artisan of the studio (the photos of his immaculate analog equipment from The Wire's 2008 cover shoot had gear hounds aquiver), and captures resonant, organic, and acoustic sounds, coercing them into unearthly cadences and foreign textures that are unlike anything else - yet irresistibly hypnotic. His love of jazz is also never far from the surface.