Ilari
Hongisto
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LUONNOS
LUONNOS-album, four compositions taking you to nature.
LUONNOS is a polysemous Finnish word and it means ”a sketch” but it is also strongly associated with the word ”nature” although with the grammatical case ”in nature”.
LUONNOS carries the most important information: all the four pieces are created of sounds of nature.
Originally the pieces are composed for a surround system and that is why the format for the album is Blu-ray. On the Blu-ray disk there’s also a Finnish nature based video-track for every piece.
The stereo versions of the pieces are on the CD that can be played on any normal stereo system.
GET TO KNOW LUONNOS
TAIVAS ALLA
(2012)
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For 5.1-tape/stereo, duration: 9 minutes 20 seconds
Taivas alla, a composition of sounds of insects from around the world. Taivas alla can mean "sky is under you" as well as “to live without a home".
The insect sounds are mainly from different kinds of crickets, a total of around 50 sound sources. Since the sounds themselves didn't offer a very wide range of basic sound material, effects, programming and sound manipulation are widely used in order to guarantee the attractiveness of the piece.
The insects are making music in the piece together and form different kinds of small insect ensembles; a large part of the piece has been composed using extracts containing aleatoric polyrhythms.
The rhythms form a free counterpoint, in which different rhythms are forced into simultaneous action thus bringing new, interesting, and often also random combinations.
In 2012 Taivas alla won the first prize in European electro-acoustic music composition contest (European Erasmus Composition Competition of the University Paris VIII) in Paris, France.
KAAKKOISMUUTTO
(2009)
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for 5.1 tape/stereo, duration: 9 minutes 10 seconds
Kaakkoismuutto is created of the sounds of birds. There are sounds of 125 birds in the composition.
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Kaakkoismuutto starts with sounds of the night singers of northern Finland and continues with sounds of the day singers of the southern part and archipelago of Finland – suddenly there is movement to the sounds of the birds of Goa, India.
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The listener is travelling from Finland to India like actual birds: Kaakkoismuutto is Finnish and it means that some of Finnish birds move to India in the wintertime.
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The sounds of the birds are used so that they create harmonies and conversations with contrapunctual thinking. They are used as soloists as well.
There is a variety of different sonic landscapes in the composition, moving around the listener.
The composition evolves as landscapes under a flying bird: you will never hear the same bird singing again later in the piece. The sounds of the birds are not edited or effected heavily. The original nature of the sounds is still there. The pitch of the sounds is also not manipulated. The sounds are organic, though coming out from loudspeakers.
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Kaakkoismuutto represented Finland in Ung Nordisk Musik 2010 -festivals.
MATKALLA
(2011)
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for 5.1-tape/stereo, duration: 9 minutes
Matkalla is Finnish and it means to be on the road. The piece is created of sounds of over 100 frogs.
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The lowest singing one is the one to follow – this frog is travelling across the continents, first from Asia to Africa, then to South America, and finally through North America to Europe.
One can listen to what kind of sonic landscapes different frogs from different continents can create.
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In Matkalla frogs are singing in little chamber orchestras, having conversations between groups
One of the interesting things is the polyrhythmic diversity the frogs create when singing together.
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There are three sonic levels in this piece: the frogs themselves, the natural background sounds of nature and the artificial backgrounds. The sonic material is not heavily manipulated so that the original soundscapes of nature are preserved in the piece.
SOIVA KIVI
(2014/17/19)
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For 5.1-tape/stereo, duration: 12 minutes 30 seconds
Soiva kivi is created of sounds of a stone from Finnish archipelago. The stone lies on an island called Nötö which is a part of the Archipelago national park. People of archipelago have known the stone for ages and it’s called the tinkling stone of sexton.
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Folk-musician, kantele-player Arja Kastinen improvised rhythms with the stone and the piece is created by combining different kinds of improvisations together.
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Different tempos and rhythmical patterns are forced to work together to create aleatoric polyrhythms and combinations. Different kinds of stone-playing technics/sounds are also widely used, the goal being to keep the piece interesting and ongoing.
Kantele group Aino-tytöt is led by Arja Kastinen and kantele parts are created by Aino-tytöt *. Kantele is the national instrument of Finland.
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Being the last piece of Luonnos, it’s at the same time the only piece that is created of sounds of dead material. The Luonnos-story ends here, to the sounds of dead stone.