Jean Sibelius 1865–1957
Treasures from the master who wanted us to feel every note.
Andante festivo
Elegie
Karelia suite
Kullervo
Tuonelan joutsen (The Swan of Tuonela)
Sydämeni laulu (Song of My Heart)
Finlandia
Sibelius - Lähikuvia ja keskusteluja, Otava, 1945.
Originally published as Sibelius: A Close Up, 1937.
Q: Would you like to see other artists use your drawing technique?
A: Come up with your own. Even if you copied the technique, you couldn't make the same drawings. No one has done these things the way I have.
It's a strange way to make a drawing and it's not something you would teach. That's what makes it stand out. No one can teach you how to get ideas. They usually rise from inner life.
Since 2015.
This is my home studio where drawings, albums, films and animations are made back to back, sometimes simultaneously.
I'm working here every day with an open mind, without routines and keeping my eye on creativity.
Most of the instruments on my albums are programmed. The ones I own include a synth, 10 and 16-string kantele, electric guitar and bass. I've got more bookshelves than instruments.
Out in 2022:
January 1 - Vengeful Semblance: Book of the Lost, Fathom the Land Symbolic, Deathless Demon Delta
January 27 - Vortice Neuro: Word Against Word
Q: Are you ever going to release music from your demo period (2000-2011)?
A: No. My demos are for my own use. Only a handful of demos are still somewhere online.
Most of my new demos have the melodies with one synth sound. I call it the crappy synth technique. If your melodies sound exciting played on a crappy synth, they will sound a lot better with the final instruments.
Q: How do you promote art in a "personality-driven" culture?
A: I want to connect with real people and individuals. The ones who are looking for these things.
The people who benefit from "personality-driven" culture are the most boring people on the planet. They don't have a sense of humour or curiosity, they're not imaginative and they don't know what research is. You can't just run your mouth and say things off the top of your head.
Superficial doesn't just mean the stereotype. Anyone can do things superficially. It's hard to promote art when you're essentially considered a nuisance.
You don't need a government to suppress art when people can do it themselves.
Underwing is my second animated short film.
Release date is October 29, 2021.
Nothing Is Breaking Through
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMuWm27Z-Iw
Industrial punk album release date is January 27, 2022.
Q: How can you find your artistic voice?
A: I had written some interesting music as a teenager, but my voice developed fully when I was 28. I'm now the person I wanted to be. There's only one you.
I don't want to produce anything that is typical. No one needs to be told how to be mediocre. Mediocre is in the middle. We are surrounded by it. It often looks and sounds good, but it's not the most interesting or the deepest.
We have these people who are dipping their toes in different things. Some of them are just doing it for the spectacle. The whole thing is backwards. It's not about dipping your toes. Spend your life doing these things. Internalise and learn.
Q: Has the pandemic affected your creative work?
A: In 2020 and 2021 I have made 78 drawings, recorded 10 albums (five of them will be out in 2022) and made my first animation (it includes about 30 drawings). There has been a boost, even though I have studied and done physical work at the same time. Early 2020 was forever ago.
Dregs of the Teeth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysanwMM00PA
Recorded in Silence & Desolation Studio, May 2021.
Grey Trilogy release date is January 1, 2022.
Pencil drawing from February 1997.
Q: Do you ever use reference photos for your drawings?
A: Usually I don't need them. I take my own reference photos. Some of them are experimental.
Being able to picture something in your mind is very useful, but occasionally I have to check what something looks like. Most of my drawings are not realistic and they come from my imagination. My realistic drawings were quite advanced when I was 11 and I always had reference photos back then.
Q: Have you ever done a self portrait?
A: No. I have used my face for different ideas and there are about 35 drawings.
They are collected here
Faces of the Artist 2014-2020
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oC0YIkpH81c
Artwork: Prisoner by Christian Rohlfs
Word Against Word is the first Vortice Neuro album and the 18th album by Finnish classical composer Rinta-Perälä.
Out January 27, 2022.
Industrial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KShF0nK6UwQ
Deathless Demon Delta is the 9th Vengeful Semblance album
and the 17th album by Finnish classical composer Rinta-Perälä.
Out January 1, 2022.
Recorded in Silence & Desolation Studio, May 2021.
Final opus in the Grey Trilogy (the final trilogy).
Black Classical (/ Avant-garde Black Metal.)
Black and White trilogies:
https://vengefulsemblance.bandcamp.com/
https://rintaperala.bandcamp.com/
Vortice Neuro - Defy Fate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGYX16pKNkg
Artwork: Prisoner by Christian Rohlfs
Word Against Word is the 18th album by Finnish classical composer Rinta-Perälä.
Out January 27, 2022.
Industrial punk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdcj21ZhtZI
Fathom the Land Symbolic
Out January 1, 2022.
Music, artwork and production by Rinta-Perälä.
https://vengefulsemblance.bandcamp.com/
https://rintaperala.bandcamp.com/
Q: Are there any art channels on Youtube you could recommend?
A: I don't follow a lot of these channels. I prefer documentaries. One of the best documentaries is The Mystery of Picasso from 1958. 90% of it is just him painting. I've always been a "show me the work" kind of guy. You don't have to constantly insert your own opinion.
Visibility is not credibility. Any ignoramus can have a Youtube channel. A lot of it's insulting nonsense like "Great Art Explained in 15 Minutes."
Artists create experiences for a reason. Experience over explanation. I don't make art for self-important art students with Youtube channels. These unbearable info sexuals polluting everything around them. This laughable information addiction has nothing to do with creativity.
Art leads the way. Not the critics, magazines or websites.
It's very fitting that in this 'who can shout the loudest' culture, the most fundamental words have apparently lost their meaning.
That's funny, I usually run out of meaningful words when I'm describing this insincere mainstream cesspool. Is there any way you could reach a bit deeper? No? It seems like the mainstream is always more interested in reaching new lows. The bar can't be low enough and raising the bar is an alien concept.
In this mindless numerocracy the benchmark is supposedly the latest and most popular thing. Just numb yourself with mass-market tedium. In my country that means reading bland novels, consuming lifeless standup comedy, listening to Nightwish and eating pineapple pizza.
In the middle of all this obsessive lunacy, the mainstream always keeps forgetting how boring it is. And at the same time, the mainstream loves to fearmonger in order to feed itself. I'm afraid we're going to be bored to death sooner than you think.
The ungenerous mainstream expresses interest in novelty as long as it's catering to a lobotomised target audience and following a checklist that has nothing to do with imagination.
Here's what's missing from your dime a dozen checklist: you forgot to communicate with yourself, you forgot to learn from mistakes, you forgot to fight all this bullshit. Needless to say, the mainstream is never going to do these things. That would be far too intelligent in the long run.
I suppose it's possible that you've actually learned something about the dangers of living your mainstream dream, but I know you haven't. Unfortunately it's the dream of having your ears stitched shut.
Q: What kind of books do you read?
A: I love reading classic short stories from Anton Chekhov, Guy de Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, Honore de Balzac, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Italo Calvino, Franz Kafka and E. T. A. Hoffmann. Usually I'm reading about different art forms, but any topic can be inviting because my reading is based on curiosity. I wouldn't get anything done if I had to explain every step.
Listening to audio books is not the same as reading. The only audio books I have are poetry and The Book of Revelation. Some T. S. Eliot and Robert Graves read by the poets themselves. I started reading more poetry after studying English and Finnish literature.
My favourite Finnish poets are Aleksis Kivi and Uuno Kailas. Finnish folk poetry is also incredible. It was passed down in the form of songs and collected in the 19th century. They had poems about everything. Some of them were censored and published much later.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeP7-naq20I
Black classical.
Music, artwork and production by Rinta-Perälä.
Fathom the Land Symbolic is the 8th Vengeful Semblance album
and the 16th album by Finnish classical composer Rinta-Perälä.
Out January 1, 2022.
Second opus in the Grey Trilogy.
Black and White trilogies:
https://vengefulsemblance.bandcamp.com/
https://rintaperala.bandcamp.com/
The idea of criticism is that someone is going to read it or listen to it. Why would I do that if the person has nothing to say?
The best-written criticism is not based on indifference. Talking about the work is more complex than you think. There are those who are not doing it in a compelling way. Then there are those who are not even trying. They would rather like to know what the artist had for breakfast. Writers and artists were saying this 15 years ago.
You have to say something meaningful in order to criticise something. You need experience. Talk about the work itself. Swirl it around. Those are the ones who are taking this seriously.
PS. I had nothing for breakfast. Can you imagine anything worse than that? You would think I would've learned by now.
Q: What are art galleries for?
A: A place where you can see some original works collected, displayed and arranged. If you can do that on a regular basis, consider yourself lucky.
I don't believe in the validating power of a gallery. That power is in the work itself. If you are interested in art, you will see it all over the place. It doesn't matter what building you are in.
Art is something you experience and internalise. You will be looking at all kinds of images, reproductions and photos.
Wax crayon / wax on paper. Rinta-Perälä, 2021.
Drawing 363.
1. My astrological sign is reindeer. Unfortunately I'm a male reindeer, which means that the Japanese want to grind my penis into a powder and sell it to Yakuza housewives. I read my horoscope every day.
2. My favourite Scandinavian sweater is black-and-white. I call it fisherman's friend's funeral.
3. Swedish-Americans had a massive campaign for George W. Bush. The slogan was "My Bush Is Yourge Bush".
4. Even though Santa Claus lives in Finland, I am still a virgin to Jingle All the Way.
5. The official phrase for learning an authentic Finnish accent is "Tutsi fruts dental floos".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFeve78lQ_0
Book of the Lost is the 7th Vengeful Semblance album
and the 15th album by Finnish classical composer Rinta-Perälä.
Out January 1, 2022.
First opus in the Grey Trilogy.
Black and White trilogies:
https://vengefulsemblance.bandcamp.com/
https://rintaperala.bandcamp.com/
My new music project is called Vortice Neuro and it is industrial punk. "Word Against Word" is the title of my upcoming 18th album. It is the first to feature lyrics and it will be finished in May 2021.
Artwork: Prisoner by Christian Rohlfs
Release date is January 27, 2022.
Tracks:
1. Defy Fate
2. Brute Force Desperation
3. Huffing the Vacuum
4. His Truth Is Marching on Your Grave
5. Emptier Than the Abyss
6. When the Witless Quote the Wise
7. Scrap Virtue
8. Nothing Is Breaking Through
9. Exposed to Bull and You Know the Rest
10. Heartbeat Howl
I made my first punk demos 15 years ago. Vortice Neuro is the best punk I have ever recorded.
Q: Are you more interested in art from the past?
A: It's not about old versus new. That would be a superficial approach. I don't care how old things are. I'm interested in everything from ancient times to present day.
We live in a fading world. How do I know? You have to explain basic things. You have to remind people.
Artists are people who make things. Speech doesn't guarantee anything. Don't follow numbers. Communicate with yourself. Don't sell your soul to self-censorship. Learn from the past, don't steal. Don't let mainstream obsessions poison everything. Build convincing arguments. Don't act like a childish imbecile. And so on. These are basic things.
New track from Book of the Lost.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQlxfo1b6t8
Traditional music arranged by Rinta-Perälä.
Album out January 1, 2022.
https://vengefulsemblance.bandcamp.com/
https://rintaperala.bandcamp.com/
1. Earthless
2. Dregs of the Teeth
3. Soundlessly Disunited
4. Spoken Fear
5. Your Angels to the Bone
6. Betrayal Is Worth a Thousand Words
7. Surresilience
8. Until Only Her Voice Rippled
Out January 1, 2022.
Final opus in the Grey Trilogy (the final Vengeful Semblance trilogy).
Black Classical from Finland.
