Simo Hakalisto

Nivoin Viivoin - a tape with field recordings only, out on LOM

Shakali is a project of Finnish, Brno-based musician Simo Hakalisto. Simo uses phonography, environmental interplay, and deep listening as an alternative way of documenting his encounters and environments. He calls it "technology-extended attention practice", to be more sensitive, present, open, and responsive through the act of listening. The tracks on this album were recorded as in situ improvisations/observations, using multiple microphones to capture the situation simultaneously. This playful exploration delves into the sonic qualities of various materials, natural rhythms, and synchronicity—observing the interaction between the recordist, objects, and their environments.

Concept, recording and mixing by Simo Hakalisto
Mastering by Angakok Thoth
Released by LOM as LOM22 in 2024
Tape made by Headless Duplicated Tapes, Czechia
Art and design by Ester Mládenková
Wholehearted thanks to: Šárka, Emil and Aura,
Jonáš and Angakok of LOM

Not Not Fun (NNF415)

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.

Released May 3, 2024

Instrumentation: Meng Qi Wing Pinger, Soma Terra, Tocante Phashi, 5-string and 15-string Kantele, Tocante Karper, Meng Qi Wingie II, Moog Matriarch, modular synthesizer, Gendèr, field recordings, found objects, Critter & Guitari Organelle, percussion, flutes.

Soprano Saxophone on 1, 4, 7 by Julian Overall.
Singing Bowl on 5 by Matěj Kotouček.

Mastered by Jared Carrigan.

"...Muted sequences pluck out shapes from above and arrange them into a series of sweet messages that spell out the history of this imagined world. Field recordings enliven the soundscapes and texturize the aural environment, sending us on a fairy tale excursion into the beyond. This is so wonderful."

Foxy Digitalis / Brad Rose

"...My favorite track, "Alin Nila," throws out-of-phase drum loops cycling disorientingly round in a way that sounds almost like Pan Sonic or Mika Vaino, except for the crickets and birdsong in the background—the kind of pastoral accent those Finnish brutalists would never in a million years have allowed."

Futurism Restated / Philip Sherburne

"Going deep he improvises past the fatally flawed human condition to confer with forgotten natural spirits & explore hidden in plain sight ecosystemic wonders to kindly provide this ritualistic new age of new age vision."

The Slow Music Movement

+ Covered on Bandcamp New and Notable, NTS, BBC 6, Inverted Audio, etc

Stoned to Death (2024, 7" / digital)

"Metsä henkii" is new ep by Finnish artist Simo Hakalisto. Hakalisto is based in Brno, Czechia and he is also known for his work with musical duo's Thistle (check out their album Teleopsia, out on STD) and Gnäw. His solo music under the moniker Shakali, and especially on this ep, lands on a very sweet spot between solstice electronics, new age and exotica. The beat that drives most of this ep was played and recorded on the old tanker Simo found in the Czech countryside. Its hypnotic pulse slowly drowns you in the current that mouths somewhere in the underwater realm where the ambience is composed mainly of Ima Sumac b-cuts played on 20 rpm or slower.

Written, performed and mixed by Simo Hakalisto.
Mastered by Jan Šamánek.
Artwork and layout by Andrej Nechaj & Simo Hakalisto.
Edition of 250 copies - available here

Good Morning Tapes 

Written, performed and produced by Simo Hakalisto

Additional synthesizers on Ad Astra by Matěj Kotouček

Mastered by Amir Shoat 

Vinyl release 300pcs (sold out)
GMV18 8.2.2023

Limited cassette edition 150 pcs (sold out)
GMT50 16.4.2022

For our 50th cassette release, we're very happy to welcome in Shakali (aka Simo Hakalisto) born in Finland, though now residing in the Czech Republic.

"Aurinkopari plays a lot with polarities as it seeks to find something celestial in the mundane. The brightest sound of the album was captured in the darkest night of the year. Sine waves, scaled according to old wartime engineers, ended up sounding like a magic flute. A hydrophone detected other-worldly sounds of a drowning compost and a ceremonial Javanese gendèr was recorded in a bunker... While the processes of recording the album were often playfully esoteric, the music itself is warmly heartfelt." - Shakali

Encompassing global and local music traditions and pre-Midi times, this album feels very organic, playful and warmly connected to a natural, higher consciousness state of being....We couldn't ask for a better way to celebrate our 50th cassette release

Good Morning Tapes celebrate their 50th release with a suite of rapturous to blissed and meditative new age temple-strokers from Finland's Simo Hakalisto aka Shakali, highly recommended spiritual/innerzone healers for lovers of anything from Alice Coltrane to Tomoko Sauvage.

Previously found on a short-run tape with Ikuisuus in 2021, the music of Simo Hakalisto aka Shakali is rich with swirling textures and Eastern mysticism, with a smart pre-midi bent. On 'Aurinkopari' Simo nimbly deploys a mix of massaged sine waves, hydroponic recordings, and a Javanese gendèr (a type of metallophone used in gamelan ceremonies) at the service of a mesmerising, naturally fractal-not-fractional conception of experimental ambient practice.

Heady but heartfelt, the set proceeds within a remarkably well realised and self-contained system of sound from the lush bloom of the title tune to the pastoral rumination of 'Rural Aural'. Where the Alice Coltrane-esque opener is reverberantly plush with thrumming bass, cascading plucks and its brooding wind motifs, the following parts dematerialise into a subtler play of the senses, trickling from the metallophonic iridescence of 'Aja Udu' to hypnagogic exotica in 'Ad Astra' and organic, airborne melody in 'Aluilla' with a marked care and empathy for your trip.

Boomkat.com

Released December 21, 2021 by Stoned to Death

Thistle: Simo Hakalisto & Matěj Kotouček

Limited cassette edition 70 pcs (sold out)

Limited hand made vinyl 20pcs by Harhama

📷 Tomáš Niesner

Reviewed in The Quietus 2.6.2021.

Released June 11, 2021 by Cruel Nature Recordings
Music by A. Ghasemi and S. Hakalisto

Mastered by Ondřej Ježek at Jámor Studio

The Finnish-Iranian duo Gnäw create improvised, experimental music utilizing traditional local instruments and modular synthesizers. 

'I' is their debut album, consisting of effortless, free channeling tracks that have appeared as a result of musical dialogue and contemplation. 

"We believe in improvisation as a tool for mind-travel and alteration. In many ways the tracks on this album are as photographs, glimpses of light, energy, captured. For us the results portray landscapes that are both familiar and adventitious." 

Limited cassette edition (sold out)

Second edition of 100 available at Radio Khiyaban

Sound installation at UNESCO World Heritage listed Villa Tughendhat, Brno with AVA kolektiv. Sounds recorded in Villa Tugendhat during the lockdown Spring 2021. Exhibition 31.8.-26.9.2021.

In their joint project, two Brno-based collectives, AVA and Move the City, aim to overcome the conventional, serialised experience in which the villa is presented in the established architectural and art history canon. To do so, they employ introspective sound and movement practices of attentional change that lead to a deepened perception of space without a straightforward visual or aesthetic connection to the villa. Their approach is based in particular on techniques of active listening (deep listening) and authentic movement.

The exhibition is the result of sound and movement research that explores the dialectics of the individual's inner psychological state and their interaction with the external stimuli of a space. The former involved active listening to the space of the villa and the collection of field recordings of the 'everyday mode of the villa', including sound interventions reflecting its spatial and material qualities. The second strand of the project involved movement sessions guided by the method of authentic movement with eyes closed and with a witness - either during routine tours or in the empty space of the villa. Architecture in this concept is not a source of direct inspiration for movement, nor a stage for performance, but an environment with certain characteristics where movement and the introspective and meditative experience associated with it take place.

The public now has the opportunity to experience this altered perception - these ruptures in everyday experience - vicariously through a film collage and four separate sound circuits. The aim is to create methods of being present in an urban and architectural space that can inspire everyone, without distinction.

Shakali's first album 'Petojen Tavat' was recorded during 2016-2020 in Imatra (Finland) and Brno (Czech Republic). Enigmatic ambient works with a dreamy tribal essence.

"These contemplative psychedelic tracks were recorded
layer by layer,
peacefully over the years,
in the nighttime,
with a focus on preserving their original energy and character.
Set in circular motion with solar-powered synths, prepared flutes, tapes, percussion, electric violin, field recordings and modular synthesizer."

Released February 27, 2021
Music created by Simo Hakalisto.
Clarinet on Krisma by Hannu Hakalisto.
Mastered by Jussi Ahonen.
Artwork and layout by Johannes Schebler. 

Released on cassette, edition 70 (sold out)

Ikuisuus 2021, IKASUS-091

The music created by the Finnish duo Lunar Horns explores nocturnal landscapes and strange attraction. While Lunar Horns are working primarily with modular synthesizers and other analog and digital synths, their sound is cultivated with organic percussions, piano, violin and subtle field recordings that are processed inside the modular synthesizer ecosystem. Their experiments on the borderline of human expression and machine unpredictability create transient zones.
The collected works presented on Bola have been created in Tampere, Finland and Brno, Czechia during the time span from January 2016 to October 2018.
---

Released December 4, 2020 

Simo Hakalisto
Modular synthesizers, analog and digital synthesizers,
electric violin, field recordings, piano, tape manipulations. 

Timo Juntunen
Modular synthesizers, analog and digital synthesizers,
tabla, udu, percussions, field recordings, tape manipulations.

Created and recorded in Tampere, Finland and Brno, Czech Republic between 2016-2018. 

Mixed by Timo Juntunen
Mastered by Ondřej Ježek at Jámor Studio

Nona Records, 2020

Limited vinyl 100 pcs.