Mika Vainio: Vandal EP (click to download)

Review from http://boomkat.com:

We’re struggling to contain our excitement over the latest in Raster Noton’s Unun series, following essential excursions from Aoki Takamasa, NHK and Grischa Lichtenberger with four tracks of absolutely immense nasty beats and techno reductions from Mika Vainio! It’s fully acknowledged that we have a man-crush on this producer, but it’s totally justified when he gives out analog brutalism of this variety. There’s a definite theme of northern-European destruction going on with this 12” with titles like ‘Vandals’ and ‘Goths’ connecting the downright rotten noise aesthetic to the notoriously fierce tribes of northern and central Europe. Three of the tracks opt for hiphop breakbeats and slower tempos similar to the NHK release, before bludgeoning the rhythms with extreme noise-force, but the standout for many will be ‘Barbarians’. To our knowledge it’s the first 4/4 techno track he’s made for nearly 10 years, taking cues from the arrangements of tuff Chicago patterns before eroding them with a caustic noise substance to sound like a nightmarish Marcel Dettmann. F*cking A+.