Kemialliset Ystävåt, Alkuhärkä (side A)

Finland's Kemialliset Ystavat, which consists of Jan Anderzén and a rotating cast of frequently unspecified collaborators, fits loosely into the folk-psych idiom that was prevalent in the early 2000's.  By the time of 2004's Alkuhärkä (reissued on vinyl in 2007), Anderzén had developed a recognizably mature style.  The collection of short tracks, often driven by looping pulses of primitive percussion, might owe a debt to Moondog's Prestige albums.  The palette of sounds, which engulfs traditional acoustic instruments in radically synthetic environs, each for the duration of a distinct, short sketch, seems like a descendent of the Tower Recordings' most abstract explorations on Furniture Music for Evening Shuttles.  Where both of these referents are obstinately lo-fi (the Moondog out of necessity, and Tower Recordings more intentionally), Kemialliset Ystävät do not immerse themselves in this lo-fi approach.  While sounds are often unrecognizable, with their source obfuscated as the song's arrangement is built, this result is rarely accomplished by murkiness and blurriness — many sounds seem clear, even as it's hard to identify their origin.  The individual tracks rarely evolve through a compositional arc, but Aderzén exploits their short duration to immediately jump to a different set of sounds and ideas for the next sketch.  Alkuhärä comes beautifully packaged, with a bright image on a semi-gloss cover, but the repeating patterns on the printed inner sleeve more closely tie to the consistent use of repetition in the music's structure.