Mika Vainio is rather unknown Finnish musician but still he has fans all over the world. Björk has said in many interviews that she likes Mika Vainio's music, especially Twin Bleebs.
| Artist | Mika Vainio (aka Ø) |
| Album | Metri |
| Song | Twin Bleebs |
| Label | Sähkö |
| Type | Description | Format | Length | Quality | Size |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Audio | excerpt | WAV | 1 min 35 sec | 89 Kbps | 1.0 MB |
| Audio | excerpt | MP3 | 1 min 35 sec | 112 Kbps | 1.3 MB |
| Audio | excerpt | MP3 | 1 min 35 sec | 192 Kbps | 2.2 MB |
| Audio | full song | MP3 | 7 min 58 sec | 192 Kbps | 11 MB |
| Text | Sky interview | TXT | - | ok | 26 KB |
| Text | NYT interview | TXT | - | good | 16 KB |
| Text | Elektra interv | TXT | - | good | 09 KB |
| Text | Panasonic int | TXT | - | good | 05 KB |
| Picture | NYT interview | JPEG | - | ok | 0.4 MB |
| Picture | Björk & Mika | JPEG | - | bad | 25 KB |
| Picture | Björk & Mika | JPEG | - | bad | 23 KB |
Björk talks about her favourite things [sic].
SAHKO
"They're a Finnish techno band - it's comical concept techno. They've got one song which has one bleep which goes at 110 bpm and another bleep which goes at one beat per minute faster so it takes two minutes to meet and another two minutes to slowly go away from each other. That's amazing, isn't it? When I go out in New York I usually seek out new funky techno; here I go out to get completely plastered. Ninety-nine per cent of techno is shit so I'm really picky but techno's probably my biggest thing. My favourites from here are LFO: they're wicked, brilliant, we did a tune together, a B-side called I Go Home. They've got very hardcore accents [Sheffield]. I call them up for chats because I'm a bit of a boffin when I get going."
Björk describes songs on Telegram [sic].
Headphones: I'm a massive fan of a techno band from Finland called Metri on a label called Sänko, I just think they're so brilliant, their doing fresh techno which is completely creative but completely simple almost innocent. And I actually asked them to do "Headphones" I thought it would really suit them and they sent it to me and it has become one of my favorites on the album.
Finnish interview done in Iceland.
While praising Finnish humour Björk suddenly begins to talk about Finnish ambient music. Björk has also earlier said that she is a fan of record label called Sähkö which releases mainly weird buzz albums. Björk doesn't like Sähkö's most famous humorist Jimi Tenor but Mika Vainion's (aka Ø) album called Metri is her favourite.
"It's very brave album - it has whole songs with only two different bleeps. The other is 95 bpm and other 96. I think it's extremely fun. I listen to it often after I've woken up and it makes me laugh my head off. That album is one of the best jokes I've heard."
Mika Vainio talks about Twin Bleebs.
BLEEP BLEEP
Why do Panasonic make music which sounds so sparse and bare? What are their thoughts behind tracks consisting of a single tone. Mika: 'It's really hard to explain. We try to express ourselves in sound and you can't put that into words. The emotions and ideas we express are very abstract, there is no plan when we make these sounds. A track can start with a sound and we alter that in a certain situation by turning the knobs, that way the music is made quite intuitive. It's easier to let the music find it's own way, without forcing anything. Sometimes we do have a certain idea or structure in mind, but that is usually a lot harder to realise.' A song like "alkio" (on Vakio) with a tone that become two tones with different frequencies, or beeps going in and out of phase like in "twin bleebs" on the first record by Ø, are those not written beforehand? Mika: 'With "twin bleebs" I did have an idea, I saw the traffic lights in Turku (Mika's former hometown - JV) blinking at night, sometimes they blinked at the same time a few moments later they were out of phase again. That became the basis for that track.'
back to The Björk Files
