MeTaL-o-PHoNe with Aki Rissanen
Kanneltalo
Helsinki, Finland
March 14, 2012

Winter in most Scandinavian countries can be a grueling protracted experience, with snow lingering on the streets into May. The conditions in Helsinki's concrete suburb of Kannelm?ki in mid-March are witness to the first stage of its retreat, the huge mounds piled along the roadside being no longer pristine and aerodynamic but dirty, grit-spattered and angular. Yet the benefit of the city's stoutly devolved artistic outreach program is that venturing to distant corners of town yields rewards with music of as high quality as any capital concert house could offer.

The venue of Kanneltalo is, itself, a tribute to the city's commitment to culture, housing a youth club, the local library and the recently renovated 250-seat concert hall set on one side of a small piazza opposite the local station. The audience included many dedicated city jazz fans, as well a sprinkling of followers of Helsinki pianist Aki Rissanen. Beside his own trio Rissanen has worked with many major modern Finnish names, such as Werneri Pohjola and Kerkko Koskinen. This evening ,though, the opening set of modern neo-romantic pieces was comprised exclusively of works from his solo release La Lumi��re Noire (Ilma Records, 2008).

As the name might imply to an informed audience, MeTaL-o-PHoNe is a vibraphone trio, based in Paris, and which in its few years of existence has played so far only on European stages. Working as a collective, the band has evolved a repertoire drawing on a range of styles from