Blow-Fi is vocalist Ville Kiiski and multi-instrumentalist Erkki Huovinen. Long-time collaborators, their work might best be described as performance art, which, at its core, consists of improvised spoken/”sung” word and music. During one of Ville’s visits to Minnesota, where Erkki currently resides, they organized several sessions with varying personnel, ultimately resulting in the CD “Iloinen Evoluutio“. And while I have reservations concerning “p-art” having to do with the degree of affectation and pretension to be found in the genre overall, several considerations served as motivation for me to participate. First, is the respect and generosity accorded to me by Erkki in our collaborations (to say nothing of his considerable abilities). Second, was the fact that, for this project, the focus was on those aforementioned core elements of Blow-Fi. And third, was Ville’s demeanor, approach and person-ability. The two tracks on which I appear accurately reflect the synergistic nature of our lengthy session; a synergy also clearly on display throughout the varied interfacings on the remainder of the CD.
On another matter entirely, and one not warranting a separate post, it would seem I have been, to use the current lexicon, “punk’d”. Unfortunately, the motivation/agenda behind “the joke”, while seemingly good natured is, in reality, part of ongoing attempts to belittle me for not having followed stringent party lines in the manner in which I have conducted myself; to wit, my opinions about various musics, musicians and critics. Particularly given my position in the food chain, the fact that aforesaid opinions have stuck in certain taste-maker’s/gate-keeper’s craws to the extent that, at this point, they have resorted to something which could be construed as borderline bullying/harassment is fascinating, but ultimately pathetic; made even more-so by the fact that they have involved young, willfully ignorant tools in their latest efforts. And while my even mentioning it is giving the situation more energy than it’s worth, I do so “for the record”, as it serves as more evidence that the path I have chosen is viable and necessary.
(And, never mind that most of the few people who might read this will have no idea as to what I’m on about. In spite of it [like everything] being “de minimis”, I nonetheless felt compelled to vent without drawing more attention to the actual nonsense at hand.)