Convivial

Always a shy man, Ripatti returns into view to introduce to the world “Convivial”; his latest, and fourth, album as Luomo. For his relief though, this time he doesn’t have to arrive alone. In addition to a long-time collaborator Johanna Iivanainen from Helsinki, this time he lands with a semi-underground star cast; Cassy (Panorama Bar), Sascha Ring (Apparat), Jake Shears (Scissor Sisters), Robert Owens, Sue-C and one anonymous singer who hides behind a name Chubbs.

The album in question is not so much of an assembly as a series of commentaries, interspersed with contemporaneous studio stylings and entries from travel diaries he kept while working on the album. It is for the first time that there’s a real collaboration between him and the singers; where Luomo didn’t write all the lyrics himself but left sometimes plenty of room for the collaborators to bring in the lyrics and musical ideas. The title refers to rather convivial vibe and social atmosphere that surrounded the making-of the album; something new in Luomo’s production history. The main hub to record and create the album was again Berlin as is in so many cases today, but since then the artist has decided to relocate to his home country, Finland, where Luomo finished the album and is currently living.

He resists pigeonholing and is against market fundamentalism but still loves to cross over to pop worlds. For him the fear is never an option and somewhat through all that he has a remarkable ability to endure, with a respectable and wide-ranging catalogue of unique no-frills releases, with “Convivial” certainly being no exception.