"In the last few years, the world has seen a huge surge in output from Finnish musicians. From the bent primitive psych of Avarus, to the waterlogged drones of Uton, to the magical forest romps of Kemialliset Ystävät, Finland has produced some of the more intense underground releases in recent memory. In their self-titled 3" CDR from 267 Lattajjaa, Sonic Temple Assassins display yet another side to the fertile Finnish underground. Sonic Temple Assassins operates as a loose collective with varying membership but is the brainchild of Jani HellÉn (who also has an upcoming solo 3" CDR planned on the Outa label). Sonic Temple Assassins displays a fairly broad range of styles considering the time limitations on the 3" CDR media.

"The opening" hovers into view with a gentle buzzing cloud of a drone that modulates almost imperceptibly until it disappears into the distorted mechanistic march of "g.f.r.c.b." This track reminds one that the spirit of emotional isolation crying out to bridge the gaps in human communication started by bands like The Wipers and Suicide still has resonance nearly a generation later. After the brief interlude of "jack's holiday", comes "clear" which reminds me of the sort of futuristic minimalism employed in the later work of Omit. It could easily serve as a soundtrack for an imagined dystopia. Hellén uses an extremely wide stereo separation to bombard the listener with slightly off kilter drum machines and squiggly synthesizer lines. The closer "emperor of dreams (for Clark Ashton Smith)" is dedicated to that occult spiritualist , author, and late associate of H.P. Lovecraft. What at first seems like a loose but free improvisation gradually reveals its structure of swelling percussion and hums of saturated feedback before it partially dissolves, then resurges and fades into the aether.

Sonic Temple Assassins leaves many threads to follow with this brief view into their inner workings and leaves one to wonder which promising path shall be taken." 8/12 Steve Rybicki, Fakejazz

267 lattajjaa