Pan Sonic | Atomin Paluu (Return of the Atom) [Blast First Petite 2016]

Back from the brink, Pan Sonic’s Mika Vainio and Ilpo Väisänen present their final studio recordings, framed as the soundtrack to a Finnish film, Atomin Paluu [Return of the Atom] about construction of the first nuclear power plant since the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. We know they said Oksastus (2014) was their last LP, but technically that was a live album, and to be fair, who the fuck is complaining?! Recorded between 2005-2011 and subsequently edited in 2015 by Vainio at his Berlin studio (not the first time he’s worked for filmmaker Mika Taanila), the soundtrack makes extensive use of field recordings captured by Pertti Venetjoki on location at the construction site. In context of the music’s use within the film, the 12 parts broadly tend toward concision and spacious abstraction reflecting the scale and peril of the operation at hand, whose imposing structures are documented on the cover art and gatefold interior for you to gawp at. As it was pieced together from recordings m