Finnish four-piece Mahti follow last year's epic Riot Season trilogy of albums with a sublime full concert recording captured at Sideways Festival in Helsinki last year.
Led by folk researcher and leading kantele player Hannu Saha, Mahti is a peculiar band, fleshed out by Circle's Tomi Leppanen, Jussi Lehtisalo and Teemo Elo, who add synths, noise and guitar respectively. The kantele is a traditionally Finno-Baltic instrument that's played like a zither or harp, but Mahti don't make straight folk music by any means, using the hypnotic sound to root free-flowing improvisations that shuffle through folk, shoegaze, kosmische, prog and ambient.
The drumwork here is particularly impressive: Lepannen adds a rickety wobble to Saha's chimes on 'Pala 6', while Lehtisalo's tape-scrunched noises swirl around the track like ghosts, and on 'Pala 5', Mahti graze the dub continuum, echoing Elo's riffs until they're smudgy loops that blanket Saha's folksy jangles.
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Finnish four-piece Mahti follow last year's epic Riot Season trilogy of albums with a sublime full concert recording captured at Sideways Festival in Helsinki last year.
Led by folk researcher and leading kantele player Hannu Saha, Mahti is a peculiar band, fleshed out by Circle's Tomi Leppanen, Jussi Lehtisalo and Teemo Elo, who add synths, noise and guitar respectively. The kantele is a traditionally Finno-Baltic instrument that's played like a zither or harp, but Mahti don't make straight folk music by any means, using the hypnotic sound to root free-flowing improvisations that shuffle through folk, shoegaze, kosmische, prog and ambient.
The drumwork here is particularly impressive: Lepannen adds a rickety wobble to Saha's chimes on 'Pala 6', while Lehtisalo's tape-scrunched noises swirl around the track like ghosts, and on 'Pala 5', Mahti graze the dub continuum, echoing Elo's riffs until they're smudgy loops that blanket Saha's folksy jangles.
Finnish four-piece Mahti follow last year's epic Riot Season trilogy of albums with a sublime full concert recording captured at Sideways Festival in Helsinki last year.
Led by folk researcher and leading kantele player Hannu Saha, Mahti is a peculiar band, fleshed out by Circle's Tomi Leppanen, Jussi Lehtisalo and Teemo Elo, who add synths, noise and guitar respectively. The kantele is a traditionally Finno-Baltic instrument that's played like a zither or harp, but Mahti don't make straight folk music by any means, using the hypnotic sound to root free-flowing improvisations that shuffle through folk, shoegaze, kosmische, prog and ambient.
The drumwork here is particularly impressive: Lepannen adds a rickety wobble to Saha's chimes on 'Pala 6', while Lehtisalo's tape-scrunched noises swirl around the track like ghosts, and on 'Pala 5', Mahti graze the dub continuum, echoing Elo's riffs until they're smudgy loops that blanket Saha's folksy jangles.
Finnish four-piece Mahti follow last year's epic Riot Season trilogy of albums with a sublime full concert recording captured at Sideways Festival in Helsinki last year.
Led by folk researcher and leading kantele player Hannu Saha, Mahti is a peculiar band, fleshed out by Circle's Tomi Leppanen, Jussi Lehtisalo and Teemo Elo, who add synths, noise and guitar respectively. The kantele is a traditionally Finno-Baltic instrument that's played like a zither or harp, but Mahti don't make straight folk music by any means, using the hypnotic sound to root free-flowing improvisations that shuffle through folk, shoegaze, kosmische, prog and ambient.
The drumwork here is particularly impressive: Lepannen adds a rickety wobble to Saha's chimes on 'Pala 6', while Lehtisalo's tape-scrunched noises swirl around the track like ghosts, and on 'Pala 5', Mahti graze the dub continuum, echoing Elo's riffs until they're smudgy loops that blanket Saha's folksy jangles.