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Album Details

• Artist: Circle
• Album: Guillotine
• Label: Scratch
• Year of Release: 2004
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: bbuckingham on 2005-05-09

For nearly 15 years, Finland's Circle has been exploring the outer limits of the sonic infinite. On Guillotine, their first album to see a North American release this decade, Circle is in fine form.
Circle is a natural successor to the experimental cosmische of Faust, Can and Amon Duul II, combining jazz, pulsing motorik, droning psychedelia, art damaged folk and tape experimentation with Magma-esque free form vocalization.
Nothing can prepare a listener for Guillotine - there's no anticpating where the band will go next. From the Neu! goes jazz of "Letsan henget" to the stumbling acoustic soundscape of "Ojaa pitkin," and on to the molasses hiss of "Salar Opi," Circle always finds away to twist and obfuscate their material into the most surreal configurations.
If you haven't had a chance to experience Circle, Guillotine is as good a starting place as any. And those who have been delving into the New Weird America (The Sunburned Hand Of Man, No Neck Blues Band) and Finnish psych folk (Avarus, Kemialliset Ystävät) scenes, would be wise to investigate Circle. They were bending the same sounds sound and melting minds first.

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