Have you ever seen John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, the series that ran on the BBC in 1972 where Berger talked about, well, ways of seeing. . .art?
If not I recommend tracking some episodes down as it just might open your eyes.
Sysivalo by Ø, Finnish electronic musician Mika Vainio’s longest running project from 1993 to 2017 (you may known also him from his work as part of Pan Sonic), was his last record and left unfinished due his untimely passing in 2017 at the age of 54.
From the album notes:
Sysivalo was recorded during 2014-2017 and is 60 min long album with 20 tracks, produced by Vainio. He described the record as a distinct Ø album that was going to include several shorter tracks, etudes. The title, Sysivalo, is invented by Vainio by combining the Finnish words sysi (dark or sinister) and valo (light).
Ways of Seeing came to mind because Berger does a brilliant bit in the first episode about looking at Vincent Van Gogh’s “Wheatfield with Crows” a painting often cited as his last:
Brilliant, no? What I’m getting at is last albums, Bowie’s Blackstar comes to mind, also carry extra weight, a heaviness that most humans can relate to.
Sysivalo is sonically vast, cavernous, and meant to be taken in whole where the listener, at least this listener, feels like a flicker of faint light.