Mika Vainio

So you’re immersed in a 5,000-gallon sensory deprivation tank with a hammerhead shark, Natalie Imbruglia and a handheld power sander, what do you do? If you’re Pan Sonic’s Mika Vainio, you make an album whose title translates as Torn. Perhaps Miss Imbruglia’s involvement is more figurative than actual, but the album’s focus does interpose actual shark attacks with more existential ennui. Three shorter pieces concerning "hampaat,” or teeth, introduce short bursts of electronic violence separated by lulls that become less frequent and silent as blood clouds the water. Each piece increases the menace with increasingly graphic colour and sweeping passes of noise. The emotional elements of the album are given ample space on "Yksinäisyys, Suru, Katkeruus,” or "Loneliness, Sorrow, Bitterness,” a track that plunges us into a vast metallic enclosure with a mournfully grating cymbal as our only friend. "Raatelu,” or "Mauling,” follows with a compression of themes that culminates in post-Neubauten grind of distorted guitar and bass pulses shot through with digital noise. At its core, Revitty fulfils a horror story narrative with twists and tensions that suggest fantasy before unleashing real gut-churning terror, and of course, a last second shock as the album ends. Vainio will be indispensable should the Saw movie goons ever remake Jaws.