According to the calculations, the sixth edition of Flow Festival generated approximately 125 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. By the standards of everyday living, the sum is comparable to some 120 return flights from Helsinki to New York.

Flow Festival compensates for its carbon emission by offsetting them in co-operation with the only Finnish operator in the business, Nordic Offset. Flow’s contribution is directed to the wind energy project “Mare” in Turkey, which is certified with WWF’s Gold Standard certificate. The Gold Standard is the most strictly monitored offset certificate, which is moderated by the Gold Standard Foundation based in Switzerland.

www.poyry.fi
www.nordicoffset.com

Flow Festival, organised August 13-16 at Helsinki’s Suvilahti as part of the Helsinki Festival, matched its high expectations. The event expanded from that of last year’s both in terms of the festival area and duration. All of the four days of the sixth Flow Festival drew a nearly sell-out crowd, and both three and two-day tickets were sold out in advance.

Altogether Flow gathered some 40 000 music lovers into the historic Suvilahti power plant area over four days. Showcasing a broad spectrum of urban music in various forms, Flow featured both international and domestic acts at six different venues, including the fresh additions Makasiini and Sauna Yard.

Another new feature at Flow Festival was the opening concert on Thursday, produced in collaboration with Live Nation. The concert, starring German electro legends Kraftwerk was almost sold out, bringing 6 200 spectators into the Flow Festival Main Stage area. The festival site at large was filled with a crowd nearing the full capacity of 12 000 spectators on each night during the Flow weekend from Friday to Sunday.

Grace Jones (JAM) presenting her unique stage show on Saturday, Lily Allen (UK) making her debut performance in Finland, Ladyhawke (NZ) filling the Tent Stage with enthusiastic fans, and Vampire Weekend (US) making a strong impact with their strong stage presence are just few of the festival’s many highlights. Altogether Flow Festival featured more than 70 artists, and in addition to music, the festival included a variety of visual arts.

The time and place of next year’s Flow Festival will be announced later. The Suvilahti area will go through a renovation in the fall through to spring of 2010, but the operation should be completed in time for Flow Festival 2010.

Check out fresh Flow09 photos at the Flow Flickr site.

Stay tuned for details about next year’s event. See you!

The Flow weekend proper kicked off on Friday with a lineup including Vampire Weekend, Ladyhawke, Frida Hyvönen, Yann Tiersen, DJ Mehdi, plus more, and the evening lived up to its high expectations. The Flow Friday drew a crowd of 11 000, with the capacity for Fri-Sun being 12 000 visitors per day.

Flow Festival’s two and three day tickets were all reserved during presale. As of now, there are still some day tickets available at the outlets and at the festival area entrance.

Fresh photos from Friday are available at Flow’s Flickr site.

Acid Symphony Orchestra - Diamonds Of The Night from Jori Hulkkonen on Vimeo.

Official music video for
Acid Symphony Orchestra - Diamonds Of The Night.
Directed by Jori Hulkkonen & Jani Lehto, 2009.

Taken from the forthcoming Acid Symphony Orchestra 12″ on Turbo recordings.

The Acid Symphony Orchestra live perfomances feature 10 Roland TB-303 bassline synthesizers, one TR-707 or a TR-808 drummachine and personnel to operate them.

Composer and conductor:

Jori Hulkkonen

The Orchestra:

Juha Matinmäki
Aku “Huoratron” Raski
Kalle Karvanen
Jussi-Pekka “Monoder” Parikka
Janne “Burdock” Puurunen
Tatu “Mr Velcro Fastener” Peltonen
Kimmo “Acid Kings” Oksanen
Pete “Sintetik” Salonen
Tuomas Toivonen
Johannes “TinMan” Auvinen

Visual artists presented by the asc at Flow09

Qui Anxiong from China is an internationally renowned visual artist, whose works will be exclusively displayed at Flow Festival by ArtShortCut.

Kenneth Bamberg is a visual artist hailing from Åland studying at the Helsinki University of Art and Design. His Flow09 display “Explored Wilderness” is presented in co-operation with Brand Factory.

Terike Haapoja is a doctorate student from the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts. Her work has been extensively displayed, and in Finland she is represented by Galleria Kalhama&Piippo.

Suvi Nurmi studies at the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts. The key aspects of her work are locality and the concept of dialogue.

Pasi Rauhala from Lahti expects to complete his Masters degree at the Department of Time and Space at the Helsinki Academy of Fine Arts.

Suvi Tuli is an artist and art historian, who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago.

www.artshortcut.com

The new Makasiini venue at Flow Festival is dedicated to experimental music. What exactly is “experimental”? Is it something that exists these days as musical genres come and go, trashing boundaries while at it? Rebels, who once were avangardist outcasts are nowadays hailed as importat parts of the canon of art in general.

“Experimental” is a word which evokes connotations to experiment, a test conducted in a scientific setting without a guarantee about the result. If the result would be a given, the test would be obsolete. Perhaps this is also what experimental music is about. The are no greatest hits runs to be found here, but instead a potentially suprising experience for both the performer and the audience.

New and experimental art is often described with adjectives such as “demanding” and “challenging”. Are new things unknown and therefore scary? One thing is certain: experiencing terror is not compulsory. In the spirit of John Cage, we can embrace sounds as merely sounds, without categorisation.

The artists at Flow’s Makasiini share an unusual approach to their music in terms of instruments used. The  repertoire includes clashes of sound and vision, digital voice manipulation, and fruit instruments. Many of the artists also display a light-hearted, flirtatious relataionship towards pop music, for example through sampling.

The venue also features visual art. Many of the performances incorporate visual projections in central parts. The French architecht collective Metipolis also produces a light and sound installation at Makasiini. It includes cans filled with fluor, and much more to be discovered on site. After all, you cannot know exactly how the experiment is going to turn out.

ArtShortCut (asc) is an expertise company in curatorial production of art exhibitions. asc’s motivation is to bring art to the people by providing a platform that enables more variety in the contemporary art world. asc was founded in 2008. They are exhibiting at Flow Festival for the second time to date.

This time around, the ASC tackles the complex concept of worth in art. The “Alter-Eco” exhibition aims to show alternative models for the ecologically unsafe touring exhibitions by localizing production and aiming at displaying art that discusses the most imminent threat to our globe. In addition, the focus has been on using recycled material where possible. Does the future development of art practices need to be reconsidered? In Alter- Eco the issue of ecological production is self-critically examined.

We ask which is more important when considering the big picture; the discussion raised through art itself or the means of discussion as such? Of interest for further pondering is the carbon footprint of the art world. It is not small, but has as a topic been hardly mentioned or arguably considered outside of art works. Why? Is it perhaps due to people often thinking that art’s worth is unquestionable and clearly not something that needs to concern itself with peripheral issues, such as the productional dimension of exhibitions.

www.vjfinland.fi

“Don’t believe a single word you read about me in Wikipedia, they’re all lies”, was the first thing Lily Allen said to me as I interviewed her in November 2008. She was right, of course.

Beautiful, intelligent and outspoken pop stars, such as her, are gossip magnets. Wikipedia is not the only place to find lies about Allen. She rates The Daily Mail high on her media sleeze scale, thanks to their fondness for pictures borne out of vivid paparazzi action near all things Lily. The artist is no stranger to the laws of physics surounding pop music, and she also has a fittingly zen-like approach underneath it all: no pain, no gain. With regards to The Daily Mail, it seemed that Allen was more frustrated by their negative attitude towards her way of enjoying life as a young woman, than their desire to cover her pop-star antics.

Lily Allen is one of the most closely-followed celebrities in Great Britain, and it is clear that the fact suits her fine all in all. After all, she rose to stardom via MySpace, where she submitted her early demos for the world to hear and wrote a blog (still does), which seems like a natural extension of her song lyrics. Or vice versa. Her knack at interpreting the urban everyday life made her, to quote a critic for The Observer, “a female Mike Skinner with catchier songs”. A MySpace account holder since 2005, Allen has some 400 000 friends, so she can always find a broad audience for her amusing blog postings dealing with real or imagined wrongs of the world.

During the Twitter era Lily Allen’s public comments have only gotten more hysterical. Often she seems to be engaged in a publicly displayed private conversation, which makes us outsiders oddly feel that we are truly her “friends”, all the 400 000 plus of us. And maybe we are. For Lily Allen also has her own TV show called “Lily Allen and Friends”, where the guests are picked out from the vast pool of the pop star’s online friends.

Vampire Weekend, a band from New York, stunned all those within an earshot with their brilliant 2008 debut album. The band members, fellow students at the University of Columbia started out by playing at a student party.

Their unique brand of precisely cut guitars, afropop, psychedelic organ, and shades of classical music later on became to be called “Upper West Side Soweto”. There’s something both of the university campus and of Johannesburg slums in the mix. What’s more important, is that the band sounds strikingly fresh, natural, witty, and fun on their first album.

Tracks such as ‘Oxford Comma’, ‘M79’ and ‘Campus’ are charming, happy-go-lucky moments of brilliance, which are hard to picture at the classic frat-party setting. Perhaps some of the brilliance of Vampire Weekend is due to the fact that two of the band’s four players are apparently majoring in music.

Vampire Weekend, who named their group as a reference to a home-made film by Ezra Koenig, arrive in Finland and at Flow Festival at an intriguing point in their career. The band has shaped out to be a great live act during their extensive tours in Europe and the US during the past couple of years. Their second album is due in the fall, which should only rise the level of expectations for the gig.

If the musical vision of Vampire Weeked is both remarkably fresh and well-formed, the same thing could be said about the English major Koenig’s verbal acrobatics. The band deserves their witty image by using delicate, sharp and funny observations and references, for example to the arguable popularisation of ethnic pop music as shown below.

“Can you stay up, to see the dawn, in the colors of Benetton?
Is your bed made? Is your sweater on? 
Do you want to? Like you know I do. But this feels so unnatural, Peter Gabriel too.”
(From the track ‘Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa’.)

Yann Tiersen walks in the footsteps of great French “bar pianist-composers” such as Eric Satie. It is similarly not very likely that Tiersen would become a critics’ favourite or a pet of the avantgarde circles. Rather, his – as was Satie’s – task is to connect with the French musical tradition in a variety of ways and to communicate his ideas to the public in a way that is both timeless and easily approachable.

And approached is truly what the public has done. The film “Amélie”, one of the most successful movie releases of the early 2000’s, paved the way for Tiersen to get his music out there for good. The downside of course was the common belief that Tiersen’s music is just beautiful accordion melodies heard in the film, while in fact, it’s so much more.

Seeking new grounds of expression, applying unique instrumentation, and working at a remarkably high level of composing are key elements in Tiersen’s music. A sampled typewriter or the 1930’s electronic instrument Ondes Martinot are tools of the trade for Tiersen as much as guitar, bass, and drums.

Tiersen excels in finding innovative means of expression for his music, and while it’s unclear just what his performance at Flow09 will be exactly, it’s safe to bet that it will be a magnificent triumph in contemporary composition and musical craftsmanship.

Suvilahti used to be a place for producing electricity and gas. Now it’s a site for a variety of events and arts. In the near future, the former energy plant will be utilised for creating new forms of cultural energy. The buildings produced by Selim A. Lindqvist echo the Vienna style Jugend branch of architechture, thus the surroundings match the innovative usage of the are perfectly.

The way the area operates is similar to another Helsinki cultural centre, Kaapelitehdas. The spaces are being renovated to be used by photographers, painters, screenwriters, advertising agencies, production companies, and so on. In the future the site will host arenas for theater and new circus, among others.

This year, Suvilahti turns 100 years old. The steam turbine power plant was built in 1909 and the gas plant the following year. The celebration started with a graffiti wall of 100 meters in lenght, and they go on until the summer of 2010. In between, there’s a “bulldozer  ballet” to be staged, as the ground cleansing operation takes place, starting in September 2009.

In addition to hosting the Flow Festival, the area features Cafe Aaltopelti, open through the summer, and there are rock clubs organised by Oranssi. There are also two saunas for rent in Suvilahti, heated by buth electricity and gas, as the history implies.

Nitin Sawhney seems to be following the central guidelines of making art in his music. The themes in his work stem from his personal surroundings, his British-Indian roots, and the interaction of these two elements. His music could be described as a postmodern hybrid of traditional Indian instruments, rhythms and harmonies on the one hand, and contemporary Western studio production on the other. At the same time his music echoes life in 21st century Great Britain, and its clashes of cultures. Clashes in both better and worse. Sawhney displays the rich and natural multiculturality of his hometown in his music remarkably well. At the same time, his mission for multiculturality and plurality of values is largely due to his experiences of being an outsider as a school boy in the UK.

The ways in which Sawhney produces his music are uniquely diverse. In addition to his own multilayered acoustic-electronic records, he has composed music for films, dance productions,  commercials and orchestral performances, plus also done a host of highly acclaimed electronic remixes. His music may often occupy a Western form, while incorporating influences for example from Afro-American sources. As an instrumentalist, Sawhney is a canny pianist, but also an excellent guitar player, whose highly personal style mixes flamenco technique into a vast pool of varying influences.

In the UK, Nitin Sawhney is also known as an actor, thanks to the political comedy series “A Secret Asia”. Nowadays he is also a sought-after public commentator in subjects related to sociopolitical and multicultural themes. Sawhney also takes part in several community projects in London.

On his own albums, Sawhney often envelops a given musical concept in a social theme. His early masterpieces such as “Migration” (1995) and “Beyond Skin” (1999) concentrated in immigration and the problem of racism. “Prophesy”, released in 2001, took a critical stance towards technology, while his lates album “London Undersound” (2008) was thematically rooted in the London terrorist attacks in 2005. On the album, Sawhney continues his long-standing collaboration with visual artist Anthony Gromley.

Whereas Nitin Sawhney’s studio productions are polished bodies of work of massive proportions, his live sound is significantly more stripped down, which gives well deserved space for the great musicians in his touring band to shine.

David Rodigan is often referred to as “the gentleman of dancehall”, as if he would be the only one worthy of that accolade. Such a point of view is rarely so fitting as in this case. There is a seemingly infinite amount of reggae soundsystems around, but there’s only one Rodigan.

After 30 years of performing on the radio and at parties all over the globe, Rodigan is still going on strong. At 57, the aforementioned selector still gets genuinely excited about new releases and classics alike, and it shows. His style is not characterised by seamless mixing as such, but rather connecting the musical dots verbally, delivering strong and highly personal mini stories in between tracks, thus establishing a strong connection between the song, the audience, himself, plus the past and the present of the music itself.

The reggae culture dearly values special cuts made by vocalists for the use of soundsystems. Still, there is always something unique to the dubplates spun by Rodigan. Many of the artists he has recorded on his classic plates are either dead or retired, and thus are unavailable to other present day selectors. Also contemporary vocalists get an extra boost when recording a special cut for Rodigan, the living legend.

Flow Festival offers a wonderful spectrum of Finnish electronic acts from pioneers to newcomers this year. Organ, taking the stage some 27 years since their inauguration, is one of the pioneers. It would be a huge mistake to write them off as a nostalgia act, however, for their imagined vision of a future that never happened is still highly relevant.

Another trail blazer at Flow09, Mika Vainio, ranks among the most underrated Finnish musicians around. This Finn turned Berliner is has operated at the forefront of electronic music since the formation of Pan Sonic in 1993, and would surely be worth a statue somewhere in Helsinki.

At Saunapiha, one can wonder at the marvels of true Finnish craftsmanship in action. Eliot Ness is a figure of messianic proportions in the local techno scene, and Lil Tony ranks among figures without whom the scene up here would be significantly less vivid. So does Jori Hulkkonen, who will be squaring off with Jesper Dahlbäck in an epic acid battle. Imatran Voima and Mr Velcro Fastener are another pair featured in a unique soundclash at the Yard.

The guys in MI NI MA have been around for a while, but present a new genre-bending sound here. Tes La Rok is the torchbearer of Finnish dubstep, up here in the North and abroad as well, while Eero Johannes successfully took the Nordic genre Skweee into a whole new level. Villa Nah is coming on strong with their 80’s savvy sound of today.

One of the most prominent Finnish labels of late is New Judas. Check out acts like Le Corpse Mince de Françoise, Huoratron, Downtown, and Les Gillettes and you know just why.

How to sell over 300,000 records independently without a record deal? Follow the lead of Hypnotic Brass Ensemble and you might get a clue. The Chicago-based funk phenomenon has been around since 1986, playing a very special brand of deep, funk-infused jazz first on the streets of Chicago and now around the world in clubs and festivals.

The 9-piece Hypnotic Brass Ensemble includes 8 sons of jazz trumpetist Phil Cohran. Having played brass instruments together their entire lives, first as The Phil Cohran Youth Ensemble and, since 1999, as Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, collectiveness is the key to the band’s music.

To call the horn-blowing brothers a powerhouse is an understatement – so amazing is the physicality of their interplay. The melancholic soul of, say, Curtis Mayfield, the challenging spirituality of AACM members Art Ensemble Of Chicago and the socially aware funk of late 1960’s James Brown are all there in the mix.

What’s more amazing is that even without a record deal, the Ensemble has sold more CD-R’s from hand to hand than most musicians ever move even with the help of an army of promoters, music videos and radioplay. 325,000 units is a lot in these trying times of mp3’s and illegal downloads.

”We weren’t your average street musicians, we made business. We figured out a whole new way of marketing ourselves. Normally, new bands play clubs, where someone of importance may spot them. On the streets, we were able to play our music to everybody”, the Ensemble’s trumpetist Gabriel Hubert has pointed out. No wonder then, that Hypnotic Brass Ensemble was probably the first group that was virtually unknown to the public and still managed to sell out New York’s legendary Blue Note jazz club.

Now, the Ensemble has taken steps forward in their career, after ten years of striving in the streets. Blur frontman Damon Albarn’s label Honest Jon’s has released their first official album to enthusiastic reviews. Back in the US, the band can still occasionally be heard livening up the metropol’s busy metro stations, providing a heavy funk soundtrack to the city that never sleeps.