Paavoharju / Es

Paavoharju is part of an

intriguing scene that subsists in Finland but seems to hail from a spirit world

where the natural and the ethereal blur. The latest of several notable

offerings from the Finnish label Fonal, Laulu Laakson Kukista finds the group studiously

adrift, with impressionistic glimmers of sound (bird chirps, static, warbly

chimes) situated within delicate songs that draw on everything from acoustic

folk to the kind of smeary polyglot pop favored by Animal Collective and

especially Gang Gang Dance. The group functions as a collective led by two

born-again Christians, but the sounds they make suggest Christians of an

extraordinarily mystical sort.

The same goes for Es, at least the mystical part.

Es is the working name of Fonal's founder, and his gorgeous two-disc Sateenkaarisuudelma

features

a similar tendency to wander even while hewing closer to the rigorous, refined

sounds of the classical avant-garde. The album heaves through all kinds of

swells and drones, but there's something breathless about the way it transpires

as a whole. Like much of what makes Fonal a label worth tracking, it's music

that sounds like it was summoned more than manufactured.