#tsembla

Ahti has been a prominent musician in the Finnish scene for close to ten years. As Tsembla, Ahti combines field recordings and synthesis; on her last release, The Hole in the Landscape on NNA Tapes, Japanese field recordings from cross weave with sparse, rhythmic electronics that seem discretely guided by lurching pulses. As a part of the electronic psych trio Kemialliset Ystävät, led by Jan Anderzén, Ahti contributes to a churning stew of tones and rhythms, certainly free form but tethered by a sense of meter.

With her first album under her own name, Ahti doesn’t concern the various trajectories of her compositions with meeting a meter in attempt to make them more sensible or palatable, rather she plays into narratives the she draws from the tones themselves. Marja uses a similar instrumentation as in her past projects: field recordings, Buchla and ARP synths, harmonium, and electronic feedback. Rather than latching this instrumentation onto a beat or rhythmic backbone, Ahti finely selects, curates, and processes each component allowing their reverberations and tones to reflect off one another.

Four compositions in total, each one conjures its own sensation, but all juxtapose processed or unprocessed field recordings with filtered synthesizer. “Coastal Inversion” follows the sounds of a coastline, from the gurgling waves or distant bells to the sounds of stretching floor boards of a nearby boat with items rolling across its cockpit lead into a cast of purring synthesizers. Ahti skillfully confuses the two sets of sounds; the synthesizers’ fluxing frequencies mimic the effect that a creaking floorboard has in your ear. And “Chora” ends the album with a chorus of wheezing tones which leads into an indistinguishable recorded voice surrounded by dull, arrhythmic thuds and something that could just as easily be scratching of the tweeting of a bird.

The types of traversing reveries this travelogue-like approach lays out coerces you into a fluid understanding of each sound’s origin, often placing you at acute intersections of multiple sound-specific areas. The pace of each piece is slow and deliberate, nothing is forced; it’s like a walk through a vibrant garden, allowing time to perceive intentional and unintentional details, sharpening its color and character. Much like the work of Annea Lockwood, Ahti displays a fascination of sound and a patience to hear each one out.