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FANUSAMURAI
   Finland, home of the world’s largest mobile phone manufacturer (Nokia), land of a thousand lakes (actually 187,888) and where the sun shines at midnight in the summer, is proud of its music. Ranging from the great Classical composer Sibelius to hot Metal bands like HIM while Finland’s vibrant Electronic Dance Music scene has fashioned international DJ/producers such as JS16, Bomfunk MC’s, Darude, and in Drum and Bass, Dharma and Dice (Breakwater Crew), and Muffler.*
Welcome a new face to Finland’s finest, Janne Hatula aka FanuSamurai, whose debut artist album Focused Mind on Pauze Recordings (UK) has generated buzz in the global D&B scene for over a year. In Focused Mind, Hatula, whose D&B moniker is Fanu, presents thirteen down tempo tracks, mini-masterpiece twilight zones distinguished by their depth of atmosphere and breadth of imagination. The LP is a powerful tour de force of magical vision revealed in spacious clarity and finely constructed nuanced detail.
Hatula, 26, was raised with his twin brother in the country town of Haapavesi (pop. 8000). His mother, who works with the elderly, and his father who built houses, also have a younger set of twins who are 17. “All I did as a kid was play computer games,” says Hatula. “That’s how I learned English. I’m sure it shaped my imagination as well.” In 2000, Hatula moved to Helsinki (pop. 500,000) to serve his compulsory six months in the Finnish army, and since has been studying to teach English at Helsinki University from which he will graduate in 2007.
Surprisingly for someone whose music sounds so sophisticated, Hatula has zero music training. “I’m 100 per cent self-educated,” he says. He grew up listening to Rock, but at age eleven started listening to radio shows that played “all the early ‘90s techno acts which broke through big time in Europe. I loved it all. I realized how limitless electronic music was and I still cherish that zest today.
“I recall playing a tape I recorded at home to my class. It was made on my Amiga and inspired by 2 Unlimited – hah! Everybody was thrilled, though, and so was I. The good thing was learning to appreciate electronic music.”
“D&B entered in ’94. My friend had this compilation called ‘D&B Selection Volume 4: Running It Red’ on Breakdown which I found amusing, but which I really started loving. It had bucketloads of amens that really grabbed me and there was no turning back. The next major milestones were Tek 9’s ‘It’s Not What you Think It Is’, LTJ Bukem’s ‘Logical Progression’, and Metalheadz’ first ‘Platinum Breaks’. Those albums formed my D&B backbone. People who know D&B history hear it in Fanu productions.”
Regarding his D&B moniker, Hatula says, “Fanu came from an old friend who used to give people silly names that meant nothing. Later, DJ ESB of Canada called me Sauna Samurai because I enjoy sauna and movies about medieval Japan. FanuSamurai is a combo.” Appropriately, in the atmospheres of ‘Focused Mind’ one can easily imagine epic landscapes and mythic scenes from Kurosawa or Kill Bill or anime films.
Hatula developed his craft in isolation. “I’ve pretty much proceeded by trial and error. I don’t really have production friends. Listening to electronic music and comparing my music to it was quite an encouraging thing to do that taught me so much. Self-education isn’t bad if you have perseverance and devotion.”
In 2003, his first signed track ‘Defunct Drums’ Depression Decade’ was released by New York-based Offshore Recordings. “Big ups to Brett. I’m still proud of that release. A VIP version is coming out on a new Offshore compilation soonish.” That success was followed by releases on Subtitles, Commercial Suicide, Breakin’, Warm Communications, Subtle Audio, Thermal, Forestry Service, LoCuts, Soothsayer, and 13 Music, and the creation of his own label, Lightless.
Hatula, who depicts his sound as “Emotion, imagination, and atmospheres,” can work on his music any time of day. “But I can’t write much in the summer. It has to be a bit dark. Summer kills my creativity. My music often sounds a bit melancholic and moody. It’s hard to get into that mood when it’s sunny and bright.”
“In my youth in the countryside, the dark, cold winters shaped my imagination, hence the name of my label, ‘Lightless.’ I find inspiration in darkness. I don’t mean some Satanic, evil darkness, but just the simple darkness of not having much light. David Lynchian darkness. You should see Aurora Borealis (a quarter of Finland lies within the Arctic Circle) when it’s really dark and cold and you’d understand. The kind of darkness I love is more melancholic than happy, so maybe that’s how the emotional content (I’m so emo!) of my music found its place.”
Describing how his tracks evolve, he says, “Usually it’s the emotional element: some pad, string, synth, or melody. I never start with drums. I play with a 16- or 32-bar loop for some time. I also play random samples from my hard drive while playing the loop – that gives the best results. I may hear stuff in my head – and I can almost see things in my mind – then I just work on the loop until it becomes something worth working more on. I’m extremely picky and keep my quality control really high so it’s hard for me to keep something.”
Sometimes listening to “Focused Mind” one might be fooled into hearing a live experimental jazz ensemble with drums, bass, keyboards, woodwinds, horns and auxiliary percussion. But, says Hatula, “I know absolutely nothing about jazz. Jazz has never appealed to me. Maybe I just haven’t heard the right type.”
One can’t help but wonder how he creates complex rhythms of a trap set virtuoso, or bass that sounds improvised live on an upright? But Hatula replies, “I can’t play any instrument. I take great pride in writing my beats with a lot of attention, though. I try to make the drums sound as real as I can. I suppose that’s one of my trademarks, alongside emotional content. Most electronic music I like sounds organic and that’s what I’m trying to achieve.”
“It took me around one year to write Focused Mind,” he says. “I put so much work into it. Creating timeless music is my goal. I think the entire album is timeless, so I’m proud about that. It contains huge emotional content and it was a long journey, so I’m excited that other people will finally get to hear it and hopefully find in it something they can relate to. It’s my first album so I’m proud about that, too.”
Hatula’s Lightless Recordings, founded this year, “is getting big and fat. I’m glad to have Lightless to promote the style of D&B I love most, and to be one of the labels with the guts to release music that makes a difference in times of saturation.”
“The first release, 001 ‘For Those Who Dream/Next to the Divine One I Wake’, is almost sold out. The second release, 002 ‘Garmonbozia/My Life in Flames’ is Bill Laswell (Grammy Award-winning fusion legend) approved, and will hit the market soon.”
“I’ve just finished a D&B track with vocals by Ethiopian-American singer Gigi (Bill Laswell’s wife). Really dope, if I say so myself. It will be the third Lightless release.”
Outside of music, Hatula enjoys “finding meaningful things in life, trying to make the best of it. Cruising around on my skateboard. Eating. Drinking beer. Then more beer. Getting high on good music. Having good laughs with the missus.”
In the studio Hatula’s current goal is to master producing with software. “I’ve been an all-hardware head but I just got myself a Mac. I’m sure it will give me lots of new ideas and maybe make things more flexible. I’m not scrapping the hardware, though. I want to make the most of both domains.”
“When people tell me they experience great emotion listening to something I created for myself, it feels awesome. That is the best compliment ever. It’s heart-warming and encouraging and gives me faith in writing more music that comes straight from the heart. That’s the only way, really.”
*(Source: Finnish Music Information Centre)
FanuSamurai: Focused Mind (Pauze Recordings, UK)
Release date: November 2006 (iTunes, CD, vinyl)
Words by: Mary Ishimoto Morris
www.fanusamurai.com
www.myspace.com/fanubreaks
www.myspace.com/lightlessrecordings
www.khomatech.com
SIDEBAR: FANUSAMURAI’S “FOCUSED MIND” TRACK NOTES
1 – My Beautiful Paranoia: The melody came first – that’s how I usually work. The clapping comes from the JB track I sampled the break from.
2 – Dreams Are Like Water: I got massively inspired listening to This Mortal Coil. Also, had just got the break (a demanding one) and the bass samples and they all clicked together. Got sampling and this is the result. Sometimes playing around with ideas, everything clicks like they’re meant to be combined, like destiny, and then I just work on a track so much I almost forget to eat and sleep because I get so sucked into the world of the track until it’s finished. This is one of those tracks. Those are always the best.
3 – Hagakure: The narration is Forest Whitaker from the movie “Ghost Dog.” To be honest, I’ve always been more a ronin than a samurai. But I find samurai philosophy really fascinating. Read the book Hagakure, where the name of the track came from. What I relate to most is the principle that one must practice all the time and that one is never perfect. That’s me. Never happy with anything I’ve created. I want to create even better tracks.
4 – Shuuchun: I wanted to create something that sounded really ‘90s trip-hop and smoky. Far out there. This is the result.
5 – The Missing Element: A very devoted funk collector once recorded loads of breaks for me. I went through them and found some really awesome breaks I’d never heard before and just had to use them. This is what I came up with.
6 – Snow People: The woman’s voice is from the movie Weight of Water. But the story about this track is that I watched the movie Noi albinoi, which takes place in Iceland. I was so inspired by the landscapes that I made the track to always remind me of the feeling the movie created in me. I sampled something off the movie and every time I hear it, I re-live the feeling I had when I saw it. I see Iceland in my mind. In terms of putting my visual images into musical form, I really succeeded at that in this track.
7 – Autumn’s Child: This is what autumn sounds like to me.
8 – Dream of Something Gone: This track puts into musical form my mindstate in the late hours of the night or early hours of the morning: dreamy, laid back, chilled, somewhere between tired, crazy – extremely escapist. The spoken sample is from another movie Forest Whitaker plays in - hint, hint!
9 – Something Violent For Me And You: My homage to the Lone Wolf and Cub movie series, a story about a samurai who travels around Japan with his baby in a cart. This track, again, is a result of a very good flow that I can reach when everything just clicks very well together. There’s a good flow in the track as well and I’m very happy about that.
10 – Mantra: There’s the mantra element. Some thoughtful soundscapes in this. I often like it pretty deep in music, and this track goes quite deep with somewhat minimal elements. Sometimes less is more. I like how the drum work really carries this track forward from start to finish.
11 – Painajaisista Todellisuuteen: Finnish for “from nightmares into reality.” I had a nightmare that I was in a haunted house in which demons/spirits kept slamming the doors. When I woke up in the morning and was having coffee by my computer, the door of my room slammed itself shut violently. It felt like the nightmare had become reality. Hence the sample that says, “What I felt there was real!”
12 – Angel In Flesh And Blood: Ninja Tune meets drum-edit-fest meets Fanu high on caffeine.
13 – Outro: I Dream Too Much: Sometimes I’ve thought that I dream too much through music. It can be like an alternate reality. One can construct soundworlds in which you get lost and forget what’s real. The whole album is basically the result of trying to feed my fancy for getting lost in those soundworlds, trying to create those alternate realities for myself. Dreaming too much! |
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Dogs On Acid > Comments > FANUSAMURAI
11-29-2006 09:59 PM
Virus or STFU
