We’re very late with this one but it’s worth the wait.
You can always guarantee that the Finns will come up with something new and different. To be honest there’s never a dull moment.
KO:MI is the solo project of Sanna Komi. She’s been here before, with the title track from a previous album, and as a member of Pintandwefall, one of her bands, in which the four members have named themselves a la The Spice Girls, as various ‘Pints’ – Cute, Dumb, Crazy and Tough, but never as a solo artists.
I don’t know which one Sanna is and it’s probably better not to know.
KO:MI’s third album ‘Belonging in Nature’ will be released on 31st January 2025 by Minna Records. The album is a companion piece to Sanna Komi’s social scientific doctoral dissertation, which examines human-nonhuman nature relations through the lens of contested wolf conservation in Finland.
Read that again if you need to.
I might howl at the Moon sometimes like a wolf but conversing with them is, alas, beyond me. This is highbrow stuff indeed.
Ergo, no surprise to learn that the lyrics are derived from research articles, and the album’s structure mirrors that of the dissertation. As you might expect by now, the album, produced by another off the wall Finnish musician, Lau Nau, has been defined to “expand the boundaries of experimental, genre-defying (pop) music.”
Its lyrics are derived from research articles, and the album’s structure mirrors that of the dissertation. The album is produced by the award-winning Lau Nau.
She draws on music from the likes of Anna Meredith and Philip Glas too, opening the door to indie pop and experimental ambient music to help her explore the Big Open Questions.
This is the first single, conveniently entitled ‘The Wolves’ to put you instantly in the picture, to be released from the album and a second is scheduled shortly.
It is thus the first opportunity to encounter her mission to “blur the lines between her academic research and her music, finding the intersections where music can be part of academic work without losing its inherent value.”
Well none of us needs to pass an exam as a consequence of listening to it so I just took ‘The Wolves’ as I found it.
It seeks to “examine the messy and blurred boundaries between humans and nature: where does one end and the other begin, and who is allowed where?”
You’ll easily find the answer to that sort of question on the streets of Oldham on a Saturday night I’d suggest.
It’s funny how you notice similarities in songs once you get to know them well. The massed strings opening to ‘The Wolves’ channels Stinako’s ‘Pelasta Mut’ and sets the scene for a fast moving soundscape and which returns intermittently. (You can’t really imagine wolves loitering can you, except with intent?).
The maelstrom screams of a chase, with perhaps wolves on horseback hunting down humans.
Then there’s a lively section from about 45 seconds in that sounds like part of Arcade Fire’s ‘Antichrist television blues’ and which also repeats randomly.
The pace never slackens through a multi-tracked choral session and then into what sounds as if it could be a Japanese garden.
Do I subscribe to Sanna’s conviction that “it examines how wolves can be seen as intentional agents, transgressing perceived boundaries between humans and nonhuman nature.”
That’s a stretch for a philistine like me but do I believe it would make for wonderfully appropriate music to a television documentary on the behaviour of wolves and their interactions with humans.
Which I guess might mean the same thing!
Other musicians featured here are:
Milo Linnovaara – woodwinds
Cello – Saara Viila
Drums – Karo Laukola
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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/komimusic100
