Shakali

Shakali

Toinen Luonto

Not Not Fun

Finnish multi-instrumentalist Simo Hakalisto makes mosaic music of strings, bowls, bells, reeds, wind, water, and obscure electronics, threaded in subtle currents of color and texture. The title of his latest, Toinen Luonto (Finnish for “second nature”), alludes equally to Shakali’s earthen, tactile soundworld and Hakalisto’s deepening comfort with his craft. The album’s eight songs feel coaxed as much as composed, a web of resonances set in motion and allowed to simmer, build, or billow. Vibrations and silences unspool and intertwine, alternately pointillist and diffuse, attuned to some hidden harmony of the spheres. In addition to his own repertoire of rare instruments (including a 36-string kantele, built by Hakalisto’s grand-uncle), several notable collaborators contributed to Toinen Luonto: saxophonist Julian Overall; Hakalisto’s partner in the duo Lunar Horns, Timo Juntunen, playing udu and percussion; American experimentalist Roy Werner; and Belgian ambient flute samplist Les Halles.

Shakali

Rihmastossa

Not Not Fun

Based in the South Moravian city of Brno, Finnish multi-instrumentalist Simo Hakalisto aka Shakali crafts surreal terrariums of strings, synthetics, wood, and wind, teeming with bio-electronic synchronicities. Rihmastossa further finesses the project’s eclectic lexicon of electro-acoustic world-building, utilizing a gallery of instruments both ancient and advanced: solar-powered sine wave generators, singing bowls, metallophones, microtonal synths wired into tree slabs, lap harps, amplified found objects, percussion filters, flutes. This is world music in the most naturalistic sense – subtle spatial ecosystems of climate, vibration, landscape, and species, as alluded to in the track titles about fungal colonies, extinct birds, rare worms, and pine forests. Hakalisto’s work in various exploratory duos (Gnäw, Lunar Horns, Thistle) has honed his instincts for atmospheric improvisation, but when alone he embeds even deeper into the terrain, acting as conduit as much as creator. Across seven free-flowing fugue states of texture and resonance, his touch simmers beneath the surface, guided by shifting light and hidden hands.