Open, the title of the new album by the Finnish experimental duo Tapani Rinne and Juha Mäki-Patola should be a telling sign of what you might expect to hear within the grooves (or bytes) of this album. Still, things are certainly not so simple and clear cut as that.
You see (actually, hear), there are now so many strands within ambient music that if you try to list them, you just might simply lose count. The reason for that lies in the fact that ambient can rely on so many of the more clearly defined genres like electronic, jazz, classical, rock, you name it.
And that is exactly where these two veteran Finnish musicians come in with their latest album. Rinne and Mäki-Patola skim across the borders of different music genres here as easily as a good ice skater would do on a frozen lake, skipping the dangers of thin ice and making artistic swirls along the way.
It is even more of an amazing accomplishment that, while each of the two is an established part of the Finnish music scene, they have never met each other prior to their meeting when they decided to work on this joint effort.
Tapani’s illustrious career as a saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer has been an evolving path of collaborative works, solo releases, and an array of commissioned work dating back to the mid-1980s. On the other hand, Mäki-Patola has been active in the Finnish music community for over a decade. Originally serving as a member of several bands and working as a producer, musician, and engineer for both local and international artists from various genres, Juha took this multifaceted experience to steer the vision for the type of music he desired to compose and produce under his own name.
Each of them brings their unique jazz and neoclassical musical knowledge and experience to the project, actually creating something quite unique, an unmissable listening experience.
