Music is the greatest bond connecting us with our past and future simultaneously, and this is all the more impossible for us to deny when listening to a song like “Hämärästä aamunkoihin” by Juha Jyrkäs this June. “Hämärästä aamunkoihin” is work that wouldn’t be possible without the use of ancient instrumentation, but to this end, its concept is only tethered to the past by constructional elements alone. As it plays out for us here in stereophonic sound, it is an edgy classical breakdown of depression, insomnia, neurosis, and the eternal longing for light that besets every journey through the darkest of moments our lives could contain. Emotionality isn’t conveyed through one channel of expression in this piece, but through every avenue of musical atonement this brilliant and gifted musician can grasp inside the four walls of a recording studio.
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This arrangement is on the delicate side, but it has to be for us to really appreciate all of the intricacy coming together in the song’s most important climaxes. Everything centers on the deliberate moves the three players in the track are making to form the cluster of melodies at the heart of “Hämärästä aamunkoihin,” but I’m not convinced that Jyrkäs isn’t letting some part of himself go on the lyrical front here. He’s completely unguarded, vulnerable even, and the kind of exposed narrative he’s building in this single isn’t possible without letting every urge to hesitate go right out the window with the summer wind.
The string tones are exceptionally deep and thought-provoking in this mix, and it’s quite obvious no matter what the volume you’re listening to “Hämärästä aamunkoihin” at that all of the instrumental detail in this piece is pure and authentic. Synthesized elements would have only come between artist and audience in this performance, and to achieve the kind of intimate feeling Jyrkäs was so obviously striving to cultivate in this song, I think it’s rather clear that his using any sort of artificiality in the music was never on the table to begin with. He’s too smart to invite such nonsense into his artistry, and if ever that was up for debate before the release of this track, it will be unequivocally out of bounds now.
Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/album/h%C3%A4m%C3%A4r%C3%A4st%C3%A4-aamunkoihin/1539054631?i=1539054635
For the listener who has no interest in getting hypnotized by the same old synthetics that have been floating around the American and European undergrounds for the better part of the last 20 years Juha Jyrkäs has one of the more important listens of the season to date in his new single “Hämärästä aamunkoihin.” This is an ace recording that wasn’t tailored to the poppy crowd hungry for hook-driven composing, but for all that it lacks in contemporary frills, it makes up for with intellectually stimulating facets that require at least a couple of additional spins to understand and relate to. It’s not for the casual avant-garde fan, but an audience that just doesn’t have any space left in their summer playlist for subpar musicianship of any genre.
Claire Uebelacker