niko-matti ahti: kaivajaiset

Students of Decay presents Kaivajaiset by Finnish composer Niko-Matti Ahti. Best known for his work alongside his partner Marja as Ahti & Ahti, as well as his participation in Kemialliset Ystävät, Niko-Matti has been an active participant in the Finnish underground since the late 1990s. Kaivajaiset is his first solo recording and was originally conceived of as an installation. Part hörspiel, part musique concrète, it is a piece of music that draws comparisons to the work of pioneering avant-garde composers such as Henning Christiansen, Annea Lockwood, Luc Ferrari, and Pierre Mariétan. Ahti weaves vivid foley and domestic recordings together with oration and classical instrumentation (violin, clarinet, bass clarinet, and flute) to arrive at an expansive, narrative, and at times thrilling composition. Kaivajaiset was exhibited in two Finnish galleries: B-Galleria in Turku (2019) and 3H+K in Pori (2020). The installation drew inspiration from The Diggers' 1649 pamphlet and Michel Foucault's extension of Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of genealogy, and consisted of sounds, opinion pieces, a print copy of the pamphlet, and four cardboard collages. This record is a summary of the sounds of the installation. Includes download code; edition of 300.