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#26
Armas Huutamo: Aurinko on kaunis asia
7"
Available
If you’re already ready for more manic teenage improvised art punk from Finland here it comes! Unlike those pre-teenagers in the Demars, Armas Huutamo is the real thing! They are right in the middle of their teens! That means you can hear all the beautiful anxiety, creative energy and forever growing new pubic hair the age involves. The awesome songs presented on this 7” have been picked from 50 other songs the duo made during the hyperproductive summer of 1998.
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LAL-26 comes from Armas Huutamo who have an awesome logo, awesome artwork and an "expert opinion" quote on the backside extolling the virtues of this group. Just who is this group? Well the backside also says that this is a "DIY art punk band" featuring two (nameless) kids who recorded 50 improvised cuts in the summer of 1998 - when they were in their mid-teens! So is it a rare find of truly undiscovered raw talent? No, but I don't think it was meant to be. LLL always had that sort of immature, infantile vibe (I mean it as a good thing, really) so "Aurinko on Kaunis Asia" fits the bill to a T. It's hard to get a handle on AH's sound - the aforementioned quotes pretty much do the trick. Two songs on the A side, three on the B. Teenage Finland punk rock with a drum machine and some hilariously enthusiastic anthemic vocals/shouts. I guess I was initially reminded of early Nirvana, NoFX, and basically any other incompetant punk band you want to name. On the other hand I was also picking up touches of La Quiete (although much less chaotic) despite La Quiete not existing in 1998. And even though it's not black or metal or black metal in the slightest, some of these riffs were dead ringers for the dead ringers found on Bone Awl's "Up to Something" tape. I swear! Maybe if I was a bit more heavy on the hyperbole I would tag AH as Bone Awl reimagined in the sweaty Finnish summer of 1998 with a brighter outlook on life but then again I can't exactly understand what AH's vocalist is yelling about anyway. The highlights would have to be the baffling, quasi-guitar solo on the title track and the furious punk/hardcore moves on "Mitas me Pienista" (I'm not even going to venture a guess as to what that title means). "Kolome Kissaa" opens with a funky techno-ish beat and contains some severely gargled, warped vocals while the other tracks are just quick flashes of two dudes playing as fast and as free as they can. What else can I say? I could only see myself giving this one serious time at a party or a gathering of some sort. I think if LLL's going to spend their money on this project they should go all the way and release all 50 songs on a double-disc effort so we could get the full Armas Huutamo picture. I played this on 33 rpm as well and though the music got considerably thicker, the vocals just morphed into this angry drunk foreign diplomat thing; it didn't really work.
- Matt / Outer Space Gamelan
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"Sort of a preamble to Finnish “DIY art punk Band” Armas Huutamo, these are live recordings from 1998, when its two founding members were still teenagers. The five songs included here (of about 50 written and recorded) are simple, dynamically flat, frantic screeds of nervous, atonal youth oppression recession. It’s goofy, outsider spastication, and if that is what you want, and in Finnish, you’ll find it here."
- Dusted Magazine
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"Wow. Although I can understand nary a word, the true debut EP by Finland's Armas Huutamo really speaks to me. Aurinko on Kaunis Asia is archival DIY grub that can stand with the best of them. Recorded in 1998 by a couple of teenage maniacs, this is brutally great sampler of five tracks, whose sonics are all over the map. From pseudo-acoustic to frantically rabid single line guitar pflug, this has it all. And must be full of cussing. You can just feel it."
- Byron Coley / The Wire