THE BEAST

Around ten years ago, somebody in Finland had a novel idea of selling automatically generated band names on an online auction site for a few euros. The winner of the auction had to pay beforehand, and the randomly generated name was then delivered by e-mail. SPEKTATOR, as a band name, was born then.

And it is without hyperbole that we at RUTON MUSIC declare SPEKTATOR's 1 a modern electronic music masterpiece. Across the six songs comprising the 42 minutes of 1, the not-so mysterious duo of Jussi Lehtisalo and Tomi Leppänen run the gamut of secret-history underground music. Readily apparent are influences from early acid house to Detroit techno, from modern classical to tribal music, robo-funk to early EBM, all done with slavish devotion to ever-so-subtle detail like the savants that SPEKTATOR are. Motorik gamelan, aceed-ic gurgles, mulched digitalalia, dynamite lazer beams, white-knuckled tension vs. E'd-up bacchanalia: all this and plenty more get tossed in the proverbial (electronic) kitchen sink. Then, watch as the duo (robots themselves, maybe?) scrub each element clean and then dirty it up again, creating waveforms of whimsy and anxiety simultaneously.

Few debut albums will be met with such a warm reception from the international press quite like SPEKTATOR's 1 will. Or to quote prolly-wasn't-an-electronic-music-fan Jerry Garcia: "We're like licorice. Not everybody likes licorice, but the people who like licorice really like licorice."

SPEKTATOR is:
Tomi Leppänen - drum machine and synth
Jussi Lehtisalo - synth and drum machine

TRACK STREAM TO USE IN REVIEWS:
http://soundcloud.com/ektrorecords/spektator-water-splashes

MORE INFO:
www.ektrorecords.com
www.facebook.com/ektrorecords