Mika Vainio – A Quiet Life (part 2)

Part 1 here: https://telegra.ph/Mika-Vainio--A-Quiet-Life-part-1-08-03

Mo Loschelder

In 1994 Mika came to Berlin with Ilpo Väisänen and Sami Salo. They visited a club I was running at the time, ELEKTRO. The lighting in our club consisted of a large number of lit signs with famous brands on them. One of those brands was Panasonic, hanging jauntily in the club window and blinking because of an electrical fault. The boys enjoyed that object so much that they ended up naming both their band and their first EP Panasonic. Though for copyright reasons they had to change the name to Pan Sonic later.

I got to know Mika better in the early 2000's when he wanted to move to Berlin and I helped him get an apartment. We had a backup plan in case my DJing career and Mika's music didn't work out: we half-seriously considered opening a restaurant. As is well known, Mika was an extremely skilled cook. I taught him to make german blood pudding, but otherwise I was always the one who would learn from him.

As in everything he did and the way he was, Mika's cooking included extreme experimentation. His music follows this pattern: from extreme silence to extreme noise.

In his art, Mika was completely free, independent until the end. He didn't take the well trodden path but rather sought the rain and storm. But he always knew what he was doing. Not one step was unconsidered.

The same is true of his concerts. Even if he played seven gigs in a row, not one would be the same. I only once saw him play an encore. After that he left the stage - smiling. It was the only time I saw him smile in one of his concerts.

He had a self-destructive side that took him over when he drank. It concerned everybody that was close to him. Me and my family will always miss him.

Mika Taanila

Mika Vainio's Metri (1994) is the best album ever recorded in Finland. It contains very original, subtle and timeless music. It hasn't shown signs of age by any metric, at least. It was also my first observation of Mika Vainio.

I knew nothing about him beforehand, and I still can't say I know him well - Mika remains a mystery to me. For certain I can say that he was an unpretentious person who didn't want to please anybody.

We worked together on four films. Almost all of our communication was in letters and on the phone - land lines, to be specific. Mika didn't get a cell phone until very late, he was old school like that.

Often on the phone he would ask how my son was doing or chat about mundane things like money problems, his family or having to travel too much. Stories about Mika being completely silent are connected to social situations around lots of people.

Our first collaboration was my short film Fysikaalinen rengas (Physical Ring, 2002). I wondered what kind of music would fit this mute archival footage. Then I remembered Metri and worked up the courage to call my namesake.

Every track on the album seems to be life-and-death. I thought the composer must be a perfectionist, and that turned out to be true.

Mika said he was interested in working with me. We came up with the ideas for the film music on the phone, as we did with all our other projects later on.

When Mika sent me his music, that meant that it was done. He would never fix anything afterwards, but that gave me free rein to use his compositions any way I saw fit. We met for the last time, face-to-face, at the premiere of Mannerlaatta at Berlin Film Festival in February 2016. At the time he was looking forward to his first trip to Jamaica.

Mika watched a lot of movies. Particularly the works of Bresson, Tarkovsky, Renoir and Ozu were important to him.

I know of no other artist with such a passionate relationship with other art forms. For the most part, artists hang around with other practitioners of their particular art form. Not the case with Mika: he wanted to be acquainted with all other types of art and artists. Until the end he was interested to know what others were doing.

I remember a scene at Avanto Festival in 2002 on a gray Thursday afternoon. Mika was buzzing with excitement, standing at the doors of the cinema an hour before a documentary about Maya Deren was to show and explained to me that he had seen all of Deren's films in advance. Mika was waiting as if the showing was sold out many times over even though only a handful of people showed up. It's sad to say, but I don't know of many artists who are as broadly enthusiastic as Mika.

I have no interest in urban legends surrounding him even though that's what you hear for the most part. The fact is we wouldn't know a thing about the man if it wasn't for his music.

A player's virtuosity is highly valued in western music. Critiques focus on the peak technical expertise of a violinist. Mika was not a virtuoso, he didn't read music or play different instruments.

The values in his music are elsewhere: in presence, sensitivity and focus. His oeuvre has a highly charged and serious mood, the music is stripped of all decoration and narrative.

Mika's solo work will still be valid in a hundred years, because it has all been made without compromise. Most electronic music is an image of its time. Mika's music is free from trends, it goes deep into the subconscious. He is an artist on the level of at least an Akseli Gallen-Kallela.

I think the best of his work was still to come.

Esko Routamaa

I was part of the group on the trip to France that ended with Mika's accidental death. We were four old friends that planned to spend time together and eat well. Mika had planned in advance what dishes we would have and what wine would go with what. He was the most passionate about oysters, and luckily we had those on the first night.

The trip started ominously. Jimi Tenor, Tommi Grönlund and I flew to Paris from Helsinki. Mika had come before us from Oslo.

Mika wasn't in the meeting spot we had planned and wasn't answering his phone. Finally we found him in a Paris drunk tank in an awful condition: his stylish clothes were ragged, lips swollen and chapped. "How did you guys find me", he managed to say, lying on the floor.

In the end he wore the same clothes for the whole trip because he'd managed to lose all his things. He cursed leaving his hat on the plane the most. Mika was always particular about the way he dressed - even as a young guy he said that a collared shirt needed to have an interesting detail on it.

At that point we considered whether to send him back to Oslo. In the end we decided to continue the trip and optimistically hoped it would turn out all right.

It did, on that first night. We had oysters and Mika talked a bit. We spoke about food, he remembered surprisingly some type of cheese I had offered him years ago.

Mika had a rare culinary memory. He was also looking forward to seeing some new episodes of David Lynch's Twin Peaks show.

Lynch was important to us early on. When we watched Twin Peaks at my place in the early nineties, Mika would bring an assortment of donuts and I brewed the coffee. When we watched Eraserhead, we ate crocodile tail.

After the first night, everything went wrong. Mika wouldn't stop drinking. We had to watch him in shifts so that he couldn't go get more drink or disappear somewhere. Many times he took off his shirt and got aggressive with us when he lost his temper. This was a drunken mannerism of his.

Once while living in Barcelona Mika had invited a group of people over to eat at nine o'clock. Mika had carefully prepared the meal so that it would be ready precisely at nine. When - in the spanish manner - people showed up to ring his doorbell more than an hour later, he came to the door naked carrying a machete in one hand and a bottle of wine in the other, said "party's over" and slammed the door in their faces.

I understand Mika well here. At the same time he was a high level cosmopolitan and on the other hand there lived in him a closed-minded, literalist finnish rule-follower.

Towards the end of the french trip Mika finally managed to slip from us. He had spent his last night in a hospital, I don't know why. We saw him the following morning. We shouted for him, his back turned to us. He reacted to our shouts by raising his hand to indicate he had heard us. He held the hand aloft for a moment and then continued to walk. This was the last time we saw him.

I've wondered, in hindsight, what we might have done differently. Should we have taken him to a care facility? I haven't been able to avoid blaming myself.

Jimi Tenor said early on in the trip that we have the makings of a book or movie here. When you think about how it all ended, that comment was scarily prescient.

We found out Mika had died on the morning we were supposed to leave when we, worried, went to the police station to ask about him. One of the police officers asked Jimi, who speaks french the most fluently of us, to a back room. There they told him Mika had died the previous day, some hours after the arm-waving episode. Right after hearing the news we had to leave for Finland. It was the quietest and most unreal flight I've ever taken.

Me and Mika were originally brought together by music, we were excited about the same artist. Neither of us could really talk. We communicated through music, it's a good way to get to know people anyway.

At some point we ended up training at the rehearsal place of (finnish neo-soul band) Suurlähettiläät. We played some pretty experimental stuff that ended up never being recorded or performed live. Sometimes we'd drink pineapple-flavored fortified alcohol that Mika would bring.

I wasn't convinced of his musical talents yet at that point, because he couldn't play drums or guitar. Only his first LP, Metri, convinced me that he had exceptional potential.

His way of translating his experiences to music was wonderful. I remember when he saw Terence Malick's The Tree of Life (2011). He loved the soundtrack so much that he went to see the movie again, blindfolded. So he went in just to listen to the movie. Inspired by this experience, he - as far as I know - composed Elämän puu.

The cover images of Life (...It Eats You Up) (2011) were shot as a result of an awful chain of events. Mika had a habit of slicing up an apple with a knife and eating the slices one by one by taking them up to his mouth between a finger and the blade. He was eating an apple like this while drunk and managed to cut open his tongue. To stop the bleeding, he stuffed a toilet paper roll into his mouth and passed out on the mattress.

At some point he had woken up, gone to get help and taken pictures of the bloody disaster before the ambulance came. Later on Mika called me from the hospital and told me he could see a beautifully lit christmas tree at the end of the hall from his room, and was listening to Antony and the Johnsons' album I Am a Bird Now - singing about the fear of death.

Mika's drinking was a terribly difficult thing. Even though his alcoholism occasionally involved life-threatening elements, you would get used to all the craziness. I remember one time while he was living in Barcelona he came home, drunk out of his mind, and started to listen to music. Me and my girlfriend were in the other room and we heard his talking and carrying on through the wall. While he was messing around, he would explain what he was about to listen to.

At some point we heard through the door: "...and next up we have Hurriganes!" followed by the sound of vinyls being flipped through, banging and finally a shout: "Fuck yeah here we go!" Next there was a crash, followed by silence. I went in to see what had happened and found Mika passed out over a pile of vinyls next to a Hurriganes record. Situations like this were amusing, but then he had a more serious, self-destructive side that made us worry.

Of Mika's solo work, the most important albums for me are Kantamoinen (2005) and Revitty (2006). I praised Revitty to Mika once, particularly the effective use of pauses and silence. Mika looked at me, confused, and said, "I didn't use pauses. They are part of my music."

Mika made music that nobody else did. His importance hasn't been understood yet in Finland. Maybe some day.

Jimi Tenor

How can music this good come out of Finland? This was my first reaction - or more like an exclamation - when I heard Mika Vainio's music for the first time. I was listening to his first two EPs, published by Tommi Grönlund's Sähkö Recordings in 1993. I'm not the only one to react in this way.

When Grönlund went to sell Mika's first EPs to Hard Wax in Berlin, they played them in the store to test them out. Everybody stopped looking through records and talking. It's very rare for the clientele to fall silent like that on account of the background music. There was a silencing magic in Mika's music. People who were in the store at the time have said that they were witnessing the start of a new era in electronic music.

On his gigs Mika hoped the audience would focus and was easily depressed if he could see people chatting, eating or drinking during the concert. I understand completely.

Mika's music was highly appreciated in Italy, where he would play quite often. Even though he was highly respected there, it would not always show. Italians have their own priorities. In this case, soundchecks would not always go as Mika had hoped.

As is well known, Mika took great care in his live perfomances and organizing them. When italians would organize concerts with a laissez-faire attitude, Mika might be so discouraged that he would start drinking after those particular shows.

My admiration of Mika's music went so far at one point that I decided against getting some pieces of equipment so that I wouldn't start to sound like him. In art there is always the danger that you start aping somebody else's aesthetic.

Mika's gear in itself was quite ordinary, but he had a wonderful ability to find sounds in them that nobody else could. He made electronic music with heart. That is in the end really rare.

I've lost a lot of my interest in electronic music, because it's become too easy. Too many take it on an intellectual level or a lazy emotional level - hey, I'm just gonna slap together some techno here. I don't know how Mika would take the fact that somebody can make a Grammy winner on an iPhone. I think he might have laughed it off or even been irritated by the notion.

When Mika began making music in the early nineties, he used mostly analog equipment. Programming even a simple tonal sequence on them was a lot of trouble. In addition very few pieces of gear were available that were programmable. Mika used these limitations to his advantage beautifully and made crystal clear music.

When he would send masters to Tommi Grönlund, no comments would be accepted. They were polished and finished.

I've never seen anybody take such an extreme attitude toward food. If Mika got even slightly subpar food in a restaurant, he could throw it away and walk out.

And when he was satisfied with the dish... he would smile like a happy child with the christmas present of his dreams. I still remember the face he made in a London restaurant when they brought him a plate of octopus in black bean sauce. His wish was that there wouldn't be too much joking and chatter during the meal. He took food really seriously.

That the trip to France ended with Mika's death is really sad and unpleasant. The things that brought us so much joy - food and talking about music - were supposed to be the highlight and purpose of the entire trip.

Timo Kaukolampi

Mika was a perfect gesamtkunstwerk. Even a Google image search for his name produces an incredibly beautiful, harmonious result. Even such a banal thing as that - in Mika's case - is whole.

This unbelievable beauty is the first thing that comes to mind with Mika. His live performances were like a cruise missile straight into my heart. Even while he was still alive I kept saying that his live shows were the best in the history of electronic music, of all shows where a performer is on stage with equipment running on electricity.

Mika's gigs were truly mind-blowing experiences where you could sense the humanity -the human behind the machines.

There was a lot of physicality and brutality with his concerts, a three-dimensional audio vision. I inquired once into what visual requirements he had for his gigs: pretty much nothing, just white light. Everything about his art was stripped down.

On the other hand, if you spend 30 years twisting knobs on an instrument, you will develop. Routine and repetition are a crucial part of making art, and Mika was an exceptionally industrious creator.

When you add some good fortune and the chance to show off your skills in the right situation, the artist will be successful. And Mika had success abroad, but in Finland he was in the margins of margins. After all, pretty much nothing has been written about him in Finnish media for the past 10 years.

He didn't necessarily discuss his private life, but would share his experiences with art all the more enthusiastically. If you asked how he was doing, he might answer, "Well, there's been all kinds of stuff" and then give a list of all the artworks he had seen in recent times.

I got a text message from Mika a few days before he died. His final message to me was "William Friedkin: Wages of Fear. Full version 2h30min. Tangerine Dream soundtrack. Walter Hill: The Driver." This was typical of him. I also have a voice message from the fateful trip to France, but I haven't been able to open it on my phone.

Mika's death was a shock and a turning point for me in many ways. I lost a friend and idol. Now I think about every piece I do that it might be my last.

Tiina Erkintalo

Mika was a man of multiple personalities. Some thought he was quiet, others thought he was quite talkative. I've heard many say he was apolitical, and on the other hand I've heard he could debate the politics of Russia and the United States quite vigorously.

I've also heard it said that he was not a collector. I think he was very much one. Mika might devote himself to collecting the records of an artist or a musical style quite passionately, while reading all the literature about the subject he could get his hands on. It was also typical of him to give the records to a friend of his or forget them in a cab, which is what I heard happened to his rare reggae records.

There was a special balancing act in him between all and nothing. Even though he was a very strong and unique person, in a way he was every person he had ever met. In his private life he periodically tended towards chaos and after the chaos there would be a lengthy peaceful period.

Mika was a tormented soul. And absolutely a dyed-in-the-wool romantic.

Cindy van Acker

I found Mika's music when I heard his album Olento (1996) for the first time. I'd never heard anything like it - the kind of figure in his voice, rhythm and music was completely different from anybody else's. Being a dancer, I feel music in my body and in the case of Mika the physical feelings were particularly strong. I began to automatically move with Olento.

I decided to write to Mika in 2004 and ask him to compose music for my dance piece. Mika said no. I thought this was a rejection that I couldn't accept, because he clearly does not understand who or what he is rejecting. I sent a DVD of my dance pieces with the next letter and instructed him to throw it in the trash if he didn't like what he saw. After a few months Mika answered and said he would take me on.

Soon after this we began our collaboration. Mika wrote music for six of my pieces. We were going to do the next one in 2018.

We had an exceptional understanding. We hardly ever spoke while working. We never needed to. At first I would create a series of movements and Mika would compose the music based on a few key words I had written. If there was something wrong with either the music or the dance, we would both notice the same problem. We never needed to try anything for a third time, we could work really quickly. On the other hand I saw Mika finishing his compositions meticulously, nothing could be loosely defined.

Mika was the most intense person I've ever known. Never a compromise. Radically deep and gentle.

Now after he has died, there is a hole in my body.

Aino Vainio

My brother's concerts were like a full body massage with sound waves. Sometimes his sound worlds could be really irritating, unpleasant or soporific. I believe though that everything with him was intentional.

Often the hard-to-bear parts would lead into parts that rewarded you. In the end of the concert you realized that he had built a dramatic arc. It ended in a crescendo of insane roar or rhythm that felt wonderful after all the torture - in a way you had to earn that finale as a listener. He demanded a lot from you, but rewarded your focus.

Mika's music also made me see sound in color and form. It doesn't happen for me very often. And I'm not just saying this because he's my brother.

I remember Mika as a vague figure from my childhood. He wasn't home a lot of the time when he was still living with us. Mika's room was downstairs and there was almost always music playing, mostly really loud. I wasn't allowed down there on my own, but I wanted to go, because there were exciting things in his room, like the stereo.

I was jealous at his stereo because it absorbed his attention. When I managed to get his attention, he was funny and kind. I think though that those years weren't easy for him because school made him anxious and bored.

Mika was often somber. My mission from when I was very little was to lighten his mood, it was just the best when I could make him laugh. We had a very similar sense of situational humor. We would giggle at mom's funny questions or the Simpsons.

I worried about my brother a lot because he was very sensitive and reacted strongly to world events and even everyday things. Reading the news or trying to shop in a foreign language might depress or frustrate him tremendously. Mika's anarchism, uncompromising nature, purity of style, music and of course his career have really inspired me.

Kalle Vainio

I remember a short conversation I had with Mika about his music. It was pretty much this:

- Why can't you make the kind of music Darude makes?

- Because it's not my business.

After saying that, he smiled. I appreciated his music, but I knew he could have made hit melodies if he had wanted. He was quite bitter with me for saying these things.

I wondered why he wouldn't make music like Darude, because it would've solved many financial woes. In my youth, a composer would have starved making this kind of music. We didn't have world-wide channels and information exchange then.

It was only after Mika had died did I start to understand how much it meant to so many people around the world. I had never seen it before.

For the last ten years me and his brother had been preparing for the eventuality of something happening to him. We only understood the scope of the problem when Mika was admitted to hospital because of an ulcer or haemorrhage. It was then the doctor gave him two options: either you stop drinking, or keep doing it and die.

For years he was sober, but on the night of a birthday party started drinking again.

We sometimes had to go get Mika from abroad if he had gotten in too bad a shape. We went to at least Peru and Switzerland to look for him and bring him back.

I was shopping at Citymarket when Atte called me and told me that Mika wasn't coming back. I wasn't surprised, but I was shocked. We had been trying to get him into care, unsuccessfully. "I live like I live", he had said. He couldn't take advice.

Our relationship was sometimes strained as I tried to get him to stop drinking. It was only that last winter that he could admit to me that alcohol was in control and not him. It was finally a chance to get him into rehab. But it was too late.

We also spoke on the phone longer than usual that winter, and he asked me to come to Oslo to meet him. That trip never happened.

Eight years ago Mika was visiting Turku and we walked along Aurajoki river. Mika suddenly started talking about how he might not live long and maybe he should draft a testament. He also said he was not going to start a family. His justification was that because of his habits and traveling lifestyle, he would not be able to be a good father. I froze up and bypassed the matter then.

There is an autobiographical element to Mika's music. I once told him a story from my childhood where I was fishing at a lake and caught a catfish. I pulled the fish so close that we were eye to eye. Then the line broke and the catfish got away.

The story ended up on the Kantamoinen album with the name Monneista viimeinen (The Last of the Catfish). Mika's childhood favorite book Vellamon lapset (Children of Vellamo) was an inspiration both in cover art and in the names of the songs on Heijastuva (2011).

Mika's mother and grandmother - and important childhood place of Artjärvi, where he is also buried - are present in his work. Mika's autobiographical clues are very quiet, rarely underlined. It could be that some of his music is lullabies for the children he could have had.

Published on 18.12.2017 https://yle.fi/aihe/artikkeli/2017/12/18/mika-vainio-a-quiet-life