Tomi Leppänen
of Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, K-X-P, Aavikko, Sakset, Haunted Plasma, etc.
Introduce yourself briefly, what kind of music do you make and what is your role in these different projects?
My name is Tomi Leppänen. I’m involved in several bands or projects, mostly as a drummer, but also as a producer, graphic designer, social media manager, merch designer... Every project is different and the roles come pretty naturally.
If your playing took the shape of an animal, which would it be and why?
A sloth. Sometimes the music is so deep and concentrated I almost fall asleep when playing, I enjoy that very much.
In the music you have made there is an interesting combination of both heavy and more minimal kraut and electronic influences. How did you originally become involved in playing and how would you describe your journey through different styles of music?
I first learned the drums with playing the usual rock music when I was little. As a teenager I got interested in punk and hardcore music through the Thrasher magazine and the skateboard films, and we formed some punk / hardcore bands. A bit later I got interested in the more experimental music, Japanese noise and electronic music like Pan Sonic, Kraftwerk and then various genres of electronic dance music. I’ve always been interested in finding out what are the influences behind different artists so this is a good way in finding out new music. Also a big influence has been my father, who collects records pretty open-mindedly and has introduced me early on for example to the music of Arvo Pärt, Miles Davis and Terveet Kädet. He’s still actively looking for new music all the time and can easily blast out Slayer just for fun. Nowadays I’m mostly into really minimalistic electronic music like Eliane Radigue or modern classical like Philip Glass, Steve Reich. I just purchased a discarded library music collection of classical AvantGarde music from the 60’s & 70’s and have been enjoying it lately. It’s fascinating music that is hard to listen to and hard to understand, so I’m happily diving into it. I seem to pick up a few artists that I listen repeatedly.
HAUNTED PLASMA live at SIDEWAYS, 2022.
A pair of TL-606 drumsticks designed by Tomi Leppänen.
You use both acoustic and electronic gear in your playing. Do you think there is a clear distinction between these in your thinking or is it more of a fusion? Is there some shared ideal in your different methods?
I think it all comes down to functionality, I try to make maximum impact with minimum equipment. The less instruments I have around me, the more I can concentrate on the given instruments, and be able to find the right sound or feeling with them. For example in Aavikko or Pharaoh Overlord my drum set consists of snare, hi-hat, one cymbal and an electronic kick pedal with a Prince’s Linn Drum sample in it. The music and my playing is mostly 4/4, so the electronic kick fits perfectly in the mix. Also, the set is so small it’s pretty fast to set up and I can easily carry it with me. So it saves time, space and health. In K-X-P the drum set is the same, but I play with an acoustic kick drum. And with Circle, the set is the same but with an added floor tom, and this already feels like too much for me! :D
You grew up in Siilinjärvi but have been active in many groups associated with Pori and now reside in Helsinki. Do you think the different surroundings have shaped the art you make and how?
Maybe growing up in a small village courages you to be pro-active as there’s nothing to do unless you do it yourself. Definitely the surroundings and especially the people I’ve met have shaped my thinking a lot. Aavikko evolved from our secondary school experiments to a real project and after almost 3 decades is still very active. Meeting Jussi Lehtisalo and being involved in Circle, forming Pharaoh Overlord and other projects has opened my eyes and ears to another way of thinking, playing, producing and releasing music. All the projects with Timo Kaukolampi again have a totally different way of seeing the world and music.
What drives you to make the art that you do?
Curiosity. I’m obsessed in musical and cultural history, popular and visual culture and how things connect. How music, fashion, design and art share or recycle the same ideas and influence each other. I like to connect and mix all these ideas and influences in my own work, be it music or graphic design. Also, being able to work with very talented people and learning from them is very inspirational.
How do you balance between the recording process and live performing? Does either play a bigger part?
For most of the music that I’m involved in, the purest form of music for me is the live performance. It’s instant, it happens once, it can be a physical experience and it allows all sort of mistakes and random things to happen. The recording process is in a way only an attempt to recreate this. But then again, if the music is made for the studio or if the studio itself is the instrument, then the recording process is totally natural. But if I could choose, I’d only make live shows! :D
What is going on with your projects at the moment / do you have some future plans?
So many albums in the making: Aavikko, Circle w/ Richard Dawson, Hymiö 2, Haunted Plasma, K-X-P, Pharaoh Overlord 7...
You have also done a lot of the design for different releases. How do the visual aspects of your music come together and what kind of a role does it have? Also: do you think there is some kind of a shared style or method in how you create music and design?
It varies a lot. With Aavikko we have created a very conceptual and systematic approach to all things visual. I think working with Aavikko has helped me a lot in finding my own style and voice when it comes to visuals.
At first it was the only style I was capable of doing, but nowadays it’s a strong concept of its own and one of the styles I can jump into. The first Aavikko 7” was my first ever real graphic design piece, and it set the tone for the future releases of the band. At the time I couldn’t use a computer, so I was the art director and my friend was doing the layout work. From the beginning we have copied layout ideas or used readymade imagery from various sources for the covers. At first, it was a necessity, as we didn’t know how to make a good layout, so we copied it from the best looking albums. Then it became the visual concept of sampling or borrowing a visual language. Almost all of the back cover layouts of the Aavikko albums are carefully copied from some old jazz albums or so. Also, for example in the album Back From The Futer the liner notes in the back cover were copied from a 60’s easy listening compilation album, only changing the song names and other info.
This kind of referencing and recycling of visual or content and ideas for the visual identity of an artist is really interesting, I think I even touched the subject in my graphic design thesis work. For the last 10 years or so the Aavikko visual thematic has been around the basic shapes (square, triangle and circle) and the basic screen system colors Red, Green and Blue. This kind of use of readymade symbols and recognisable color themes is something that I like to research in my other visual works as well. How to make something new with familiar everyday elements?
Your different projects have had collaborations with great artists like Aaron Turner, Läjä Äijälä and Richard Dawson. If you could collaborate with any past or present artist/band which would it be?
It’s impossible to think, I’d prefer to someone randomly choose this artist for me, and then we’d do something together, that’d be interesting!
Recommend three artists everyone should know? (bands or anything you wish to mention)
Looking at my desk right now, I’ve been reading some books about art and music. Inspired by these classical AvantGarde albums I found I started again reading this book called “A Brief History of New Music” by Hans Ulrich Obrist. It contains interviews with composers/artists like Stockhausen, Pauline Oliveros, Tony Conrad... Very interesting read. And one of the albums I’ve been listening most is called “The Great Learning / The Scratch Orchestra” by Cornelius Cardew, it’s really good! Then I just got this book about Tadaaki Kuwayama, a Japanese artist living in New York who aims to make the most neutral art ever that doesn’t belong to any genre or time. He calls it radical neutrality.
Last words of wisdom?
Thank you!
↑
Tomi Leppänen
of Circle, Pharaoh Overlord, K-X-P, Aavikko, Sakset, Haunted Plasma, etc.
Introduce yourself briefly, what kind of music do you make and what is your role in these different projects?
My name is Tomi Leppänen. I’m involved in several bands or projects, mostly as a drummer, but also as a producer, graphic designer, social media manager, merch designer... Every project is different and the roles come pretty naturally.
If your playing took the shape of an animal, which would it be and why?
A sloth. Sometimes the music is so deep and concentrated I almost fall asleep when playing, I enjoy that very much.
In the music you have made there is an interesting combination of both heavy and more minimal kraut and electronic influences. How did you originally become involved in playing and how would you describe your journey through different styles of music?
I first learned the drums with playing the usual rock music when I was little. As a teenager I got interested in punk and hardcore music through the Thrasher magazine and the skateboard films, and we formed some punk / hardcore bands. A bit later I got interested in the more experimental music, Japanese noise and electronic music like Pan Sonic, Kraftwerk and then various genres of electronic dance music. I’ve always been interested in finding out what are the influences behind different artists so this is a good way in finding out new music. Also a big influence has been my father, who collects records pretty open-mindedly and has introduced me early on for example to the music of Arvo Pärt, Miles Davis and Terveet Kädet. He’s still actively looking for new music all the time and can easily blast out Slayer just for fun. Nowadays I’m mostly into really minimalistic electronic music like Eliane Radigue or modern classical like Philip Glass, Steve Reich. I just purchased a discarded library music collection of classical AvantGarde music from the 60’s & 70’s and have been enjoying it lately. It’s fascinating music that is hard to listen to and hard to understand, so I’m happily diving into it. I seem to pick up a few artists that I listen repeatedly.
HAUNTED PLASMA live at SIDEWAYS, 2022.
You use both acoustic and electronic gear in your playing. Do you think there is a clear distinction between these in your thinking or is it more of a fusion? Is there some shared ideal in your different methods?
I think it all comes down to functionality, I try to make maximum impact with minimum equipment. The less instruments I have around me, the more I can concentrate on the given instruments, and be able to find the right sound or feeling with them. For example in Aavikko or Pharaoh Overlord my drum set consists of snare, hi-hat, one cymbal and an electronic kick pedal with a Prince’s Linn Drum sample in it. The music and my playing is mostly 4/4, so the electronic kick fits perfectly in the mix. Also, the set is so small it’s pretty fast to set up and I can easily carry it with me. So it saves time, space and health. In K-X-P the drum set is the same, but I play with an acoustic kick drum. And with Circle, the set is the same but with an added floor tom, and this already feels like too much for me! :D
You grew up in Siilinjärvi but have been active in many groups associated with Pori and now reside in Helsinki. Do you think the different surroundings have shaped the art you make and how?
Maybe growing up in a small village courages you to be pro-active as there’s nothing to do unless you do it yourself. Definitely the surroundings and especially the people I’ve met have shaped my thinking a lot. Aavikko evolved from our secondary school experiments to a real project and after almost 3 decades is still very active. Meeting Jussi Lehtisalo and being involved in Circle, forming Pharaoh Overlord and other projects has opened my eyes and ears to another way of thinking, playing, producing and releasing music. All the projects with Timo Kaukolampi again have a totally different way of seeing the world and music.
What drives you to make the art that you do?
Curiosity. I’m obsessed in musical and cultural history, popular and visual culture and how things connect. How music, fashion, design and art share or recycle the same ideas and influence each other. I like to connect and mix all these ideas and influences in my own work, be it music or graphic design. Also, being able to work with very talented people and learning from them is very inspirational.
How do you balance between the recording process and live performing? Does either play a bigger part?
For most of the music that I’m involved in, the purest form of music for me is the live performance. It’s instant, it happens once, it can be a physical experience and it allows all sort of mistakes and random things to happen. The recording process is in a way only an attempt to recreate this. But then again, if the music is made for the studio or if the studio itself is the instrument, then the recording process is totally natural. But if I could choose, I’d only make live shows! :D
What is going on with your projects at the moment / do you have some future plans?
So many albums in the making: Aavikko, Circle w/ Richard Dawson, Hymiö 2, Haunted Plasma, K-X-P, Pharaoh Overlord 7...
A pair of TL-606 drumsticks designed by Tomi Leppänen.
You have also done a lot of the design for different releases. How do the visual aspects of your music come together and what kind of a role does it have? Also: do you think there is some kind of a shared style or method in how you create music and design?
It varies a lot. With Aavikko we have created a very conceptual and systematic approach to all things visual. I think working with Aavikko has helped me a lot in finding my own style and voice when it comes to visuals.
At first it was the only style I was capable of doing, but nowadays it’s a strong concept of its own and one of the styles I can jump into. The first Aavikko 7” was my first ever real graphic design piece, and it set the tone for the future releases of the band. At the time I couldn’t use a computer, so I was the art director and my friend was doing the layout work. From the beginning we have copied layout ideas or used readymade imagery from various sources for the covers. At first, it was a necessity, as we didn’t know how to make a good layout, so we copied it from the best looking albums. Then it became the visual concept of sampling or borrowing a visual language. Almost all of the back cover layouts of the Aavikko albums are carefully copied from some old jazz albums or so. Also, for example in the album Back From The Futer the liner notes in the back cover were copied from a 60’s easy listening compilation album, only changing the song names and other info.
This kind of referencing and recycling of visual or content and ideas for the visual identity of an artist is really interesting, I think I even touched the subject in my graphic design thesis work. For the last 10 years or so the Aavikko visual thematic has been around the basic shapes (square, triangle and circle) and the basic screen system colors Red, Green and Blue. This kind of use of readymade symbols and recognisable color themes is something that I like to research in my other visual works as well. How to make something new with familiar everyday elements?
Your different projects have had collaborations with great artists like Aaron Turner, Läjä Äijälä and Richard Dawson. If you could collaborate with any past or present artist/band which would it be?
It’s impossible to think, I’d prefer to someone randomly choose this artist for me, and then we’d do something together, that’d be interesting!
Recommend three artists everyone should know? (bands or anything you wish to mention)
Looking at my desk right now, I’ve been reading some books about art and music. Inspired by these classical AvantGarde albums I found I started again reading this book called “A Brief History of New Music” by Hans Ulrich Obrist. It contains interviews with composers/artists like Stockhausen, Pauline Oliveros, Tony Conrad... Very interesting read. And one of the albums I’ve been listening most is called “The Great Learning / The Scratch Orchestra” by Cornelius Cardew, it’s really good! Then I just got this book about Tadaaki Kuwayama, a Japanese artist living in New York who aims to make the most neutral art ever that doesn’t belong to any genre or time. He calls it radical neutrality.
Last words of wisdom?
Thank you!
↑