(F-Communications/Creative Vibes)

Jori Hulkonnen was born and raised in the small, cold town of Kemi in the north of Finland. From an early age back in the 80s, his musical influences came principally from all things electronic and eclectic, something quite unusual for a 10-year old Scandanavian kid growing up in the middle of the cold war. But it was this early exposure to these machine made sounds that laid the foundation to where he finds himself musically today, specifically on his latest offering, Dualizm.

Dualizm is Jori Hulkkonen’s fifth album on F-Com and the first one I have had the pleasure of listening to. It features vocal contributions from John Foxx, (the original singer of 80s electronic pioneers Ultravox), Tiga , Swedish pop singer Jose Gonzales, Nick Triani from UK band Supermodel, and Jerry Valuri, and is very true to its title with its dualistic nature unmistakable.

There are definitely two faces to this album. The first is the lush, melodic, melancholic and soft face evident in tracks such as the melancholic, piano-driven Science that utilises Nick Triani’s excellent voice to great effect, Some Distance Memory that is a beat-less track with soft brass sounds washing over warm synth lines, the beautifully lush Blinded by The Numbers, and the delicate Stykkarit Laukee Taas.  The other face is the dancefloor-focussed face of more techno, electro-pop and house style tracks like Dislocated, the excellent Depeche Mode/Pet Shop Boys-esque Lo-Fiction with Jerry Valuri’s sweet vocals, and the album’s high point Dying in Beauty featuring the omnipresent Tiga on vocal duties sounding very Bernard Sumner.

Previous attempts by other electronic/dance artists at creating a dualistic styled album have mostly failed due to the absence of much needed consistency in sounds despite there being a variety of beat structures and tempos.  This is where Jori Hulkonnen has got it right. Whilst the album takes us into two very different worlds, the tranquil and down-tempo world followed by the poppy and dancefloor-oriented world, it achieves this through much flow and consistency in moods and sounds that it is neither jarring or distracting to the listener. This is a mean feat indeed and one which one can only admire.  Top work Mr Hulkonnen, I’ll be listening to this record for a long time yet.