Julian Lähdesmäki (Finland) – Part One (single/future EP track)

The latest addition to the excellent Finnish Soliti label comes in the form of Julian Lähdesmäki, who is originally from Helsinki, was brought up in Los Angeles and transited between the two in his youth, then settled in Nashville and a host of other US cities, soaking up the musicianship in each, and has now returned to his roots.

He sounds like music’s answer to Bill Bryson. I imagine he might have met him on his travels.

He says he came back “to connect with my homeland and continue the sonic journey”, adding “I am such a combination of the places I have lived, but ultimately I want to really understand where I am from.”

Er, yeah man.

‘Part One’, as it suggests on the tin, is the first track from his forthcoming EP, ‘Young Jupiter’, which is scheduled for a 31^st May release.

The other tracks are Parts 2, 3 and 4.

Whenever I see projects that are sorted and named so precisely like that I assume that the artist is going to be some variety of ambient electronic specialist, composing on the cusp of psych. So when he concludes “the whole project felt like stream of conscious and it started with this psychedelic synth arpeggio part and the lyrical idea of ‘found my place outside my window.’ It was kind of an invitation for me to search outside of myself for some new signals the universe was sending me,” I know what to expect.

I look to the sky where an elephant’s eye is looking at me from a bubblegum tree.

Let’s not mince words here, this is a complex piece and you aren’t going to hear it in Tesco, Carrefour, Walmart or any other supermarket any time soon. It starts off disconcertingly like the Greater Manchester Police helicopter is hovering over my house again.

Then it settles into the accompaniment to an interstellar journey, the soothing synthesiser notes, metronomic beat and hushed chanted vocal offering the distinct possibility that had they played this to HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey when it went wonky, it wouldn’t have lost its marbles and started singing “Daisy, give me your answer do.”

Then suddenly it goes wonky. A fight breaks out in the bar in The Fifth Element and Regan MacNeil is speaking backwards.

But just as quickly the main theme recovers, takes on a ‘Tubular Bells’-like characterisation and even plays out dance-ably.

Julian plays piano, guitar, vocals, synthesisers, drums and percussion and provided the programming and string arrangements, which makes it more appropriate still to being in the Mike Oldfield analogy.

You’ll probably need to listen to it twice at least to get into it but once you have the tantalising question of just where he will go with ‘Part Two’ will get stuck indelibly in your head.

Find him on:

Website: https://www.songsofjulian.com/