Pan Sonic
Vakio

The debut album of Pan Sonic was released in 1995, at the time with one too many as in the name and a formation of three: Sami Salo, who later left the group, Mika Vainio, and Ilpo Väisänen. Unusual names in the soundscape of the '90s, hailing from cold Finland. Equally unusual is the album's title, "Vakio" (constant), and the music it contains is equally cold: an electronic sound stripped of any accessory or decorative elements, sometimes winking at the side of experimentation, or turning towards quieter ambient atmospheres.

15 tracks for 64 minutes of music, the overall strategy of this work manifests itself from the first notes: each track presents a musical idea or cue devoid of development and repeated to the point of spasm with slight variations, just enough to make listening plausible. Dark and cavernous sounds are accompanied by percussive impulses with varying degrees of regularity; and when the sound is too clean, Pan Sonic cleverly dirty it with some glitch or scratch, blips or a buzz, and in one case ("Reso") with an effect similar to radio interference.

"Vakio" thus concedes nothing: it showcases a series of sound objects, like in a kind of acoustic catalog, leaving it to the listener to choose or discard. Even in the use of instruments, the Finnish group demonstrates an unconventional attitude, using custom-made equipment that at the time Jari Lehtinen, a sort of additional group member, assembled.

However, at the forefront under "Vakio's" spotlight wants to be only the sound, often monolithic and monotonous as in the opening track "Alku", in which a pure sinusoidal sound is accompanied by another sine wave producing a modulation that recalls the alarm signal of a digital device. A sound in other tracks composed of ultra-low frequencies, which at the track's conclusion abruptly interrupts, without warning. A sound that shows itself functionally anticommunicative, not seeking to win the listener's favor but rather standing there as a barrier. To be taken or left, without compromise.