KARKKIAUTOMAATTI

Main chronology:

• 2006: Kaikilla

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KARKKIAUTOMAATTI - KAIKILLA

CD1: Levy-Yhtiö 1993 EP: 1) En kai koskaan löydä sitä oikeaa; Rakkaudella EP: 2) Ei oo ei oo toivookaa; 3) Hei Johanna; 4) Annathan anteeksi; 5) Hyvää matkaa, kulta pieni; Kävelyllä EP: 6) Ja mua harmitti niin (joo joo); 7) Rakkautta ensisilmäyksellä; 8) Luulitsä niin; 9) Maailman komein poika; Karkuteillä: 10) Jää beibi jää; 11) Aina vaan jaa jaa jaa; 12) Kai vielä joskus muistat mua; 13) Toivon että huomaat; 14) Hei okei mä meen; 15) Paina kaasua, honey!; 16) Äl-oo-vee; 17) Särkyneen sydämen twist; 18) Taaskin turhaan... 19) Tanssi vaan; 20) Takaisin en tuu; 21) Yeah yeah Jenni; 22) Kaikki menee pää edellä surffaamaan; Trallalalla EP: 23) Ymmärtää jos voisit näin; 24) Nyt lähtee rock 'n' roll; 25) Hyvästi Yyteri; 26) Uskomaton tapaus; 27) Ykkösbussi; 28) Modesty Blaise; Kaksi-nolla: 29) Niin oot kaveria!; 30) Huimaa, huimaa (Maagista vetovoimaa); 31) Inhat silmät tuijottaa; 32) Luonnon helmaan; 33) Minun ikioma kesälaulu; 34) Nimi muistiossa; 35) Karkkiautomaatti bop; 36) Pliis Denise; 37) Sovitelma: erätauko; 38) Viikonloppu kahdestaan; 39) Vanha älppärini soi (Soi dadididididamdaa); 40) Ja kesä hiipuu hiljaa...
CD2: Lämmöllä EP: 1) Hölmö kaikkein aikojen; 2) Toinen onneen vie; 3) Stimango; Seikkailuun (Single): 4) Kuutamo; Susan (Single): 5) Kuutamox kaikuu; Suudelmilla: 6) Rio Wamba; 7) Arvoitus on meille poika tuo; 8) Seikkailuun; 9) Nyt heitän arpakuution; 10) Toinen onneen vie (Albumiversio); 11) Yks-kaks-motocross; 12) Minne vaan; 13) Parisuhteen aakkoset; 14) Mä tahdon romanssin; 15) Voi kuinka on tää maailmain; 16) Kemijoki; 17) Susan; 18) Wambada; 19) Kaks-kol-motocross (Chinon & Rhodes Remix)

The collected works of an uniquely charming Finnish cult classic band, with one genuine classic in their back catalogue.

Technically I could have just made a full artist page entirely through this compilation, but it's perhaps a little easier to talk about this band's output as a whole rather than do in-depth analyses for all of it...

The 59 songs on Kaikilla collects together the entire recorded output of Karkkiautomaatti, a Finnish cult band who operated between 1993 and 1998, and who never had any option other than to be a cult band. With lyrics and attitude directly indebted to 50s rock 'n' roll and Finnish schlager, melodies straight out of bubblegum pop, the energy and playing style of the dodgy punk band your friends put together for fun and Janne Kuusela’s ridiculously saccharine vocals, Karkkiautomaatti were a baffling concoction who had so much inate charm that they inspired grassroots devotion with their overly earnest puppy love songs, often played side by side with hard rock covers in the live set. But behind the quirkiness were real strengths: Kuusela had a genuine talent for arrangement and melody, and bassist Sami Häikiö and particularly drummer Mikko Huusko were the energetic firecrackers underneath.

The first disc of Kaikilla covers the first two albums - 1994’s Karkuteillä and 1996’s Kaksi-nolla - as well as various peripheral EPs and singles around the long-plays. Despite the breadth of material, everything goes forward pretty breezily, with both albums running at 20-25 minutes and the EPs barely reaching five minutes, as the band finish their songs in an average of a minute and a half. The brevity works in their favour. Karkkiautomaatti had a consistent style (90% of the first disc is more or less the same song over and over again but with a different vocal hook), but wildly inconsistent quality control: one minute you're face to face with an ingeniusly lovely melody, and the literal next minute you may as well be listening to a school band’s first practice session going awry. It doesn't make for a great listen per se but the adorably slapdash nature of it all is part of early Karkkiautomaatti's charm and it plays well together with the song material. With the songs being so short and everything flying by so quickly, any clunkers are quickly brushed off and barely slow things down. Taking it all in during a single 70-minute block as presented on Kaikilla can get a bit hectic, and so the original running lengths for these releases make sense: something as syrupy and at times shambolic as this is best enjoyed in small bursts.

There isn’t much development across the first set of releases either. The recording quality gets better as time goes by, and Kaksi-nolla sees the start of the band developing their sound a bit further, with some additional instrumentation, introducing an acoustic song and even going as far as getting close (but not over!) the prog-tastic three minute song length barrier. It does feel bad to brush off so much of the first disc with barely a mention but overall, while there’s a number of genuinely fun, great little pop nuggets across the early days, Kaksi-nolla is the apex of Karkkiautomaatti’s initial sound and it houses the best songs on the otherwise somewhat samey (positively or not, depending on the mood) first disc. If there’s a song that perfectly describes the ethos of the band, it’s the Kaksi-nolla opening track “Niin oot kaveria!”, with its obnoxiously catchy backing vocals, ridiculously sweet melodies and the scruffy-round-the-edges playing that binds them together into a stupidly jolly ray of sunshine.

Karkkiautomaatti had almost as many drummers during their lifetime as they had releases, but the Lämmöllä EP released after Kaksi-nolla found the band in a limbo point in-between percussionists, and it turned out to be an unexpected sea change moment for the band. Rather than the EP seeing the now-duo acting out a stripped down interpretation of the band, Kuusela and Häikiö started to experiment in a homebrewed version of a studio wizardry moment. The three songs on the EP, which starts the second disc, represent the birth of Karkkiautomaatti 2.0. "Hölmö kaikkein aikojen" reimagines the band's traditional sugary pop formula with vintage keyboards and drum machines in lieu of the rock & roll aesthetic of the releases before it, "Toinen onneen vie" is an honest-to-earth anthem that grows and develops further than any of the 40 songs before it, and the instrumental rock-out "Stimango" has a muscular touch previously amiss from the band even at their most punk rock. The goofy and naïve band of the first disc who embraced their amateurish charm have finally decided to stop fooling around and to take some time to grow up a little, in the process tapping onto aspects that were always in the background but had been perhaps intentionally obscured before.

This leads directly into the band’s third and final album, 1998’s Suudelmilla. The liner notes for Kaikilla features, alongside a general biography, a number of small blurbs by friends and industry mates of the band, and even nearly all of them admit it’s Suudelmilla where everything finally clicked and Karkkiautomaatti became something to seriously watch out for. With the additions of drummer Vesa Lehto and arguably more importantly Jenni Rope on keyboards, Karkkiautomaatti built upon the previous EP’s growth and took it to a full length format. It sees the band staying honest to everything they stood for before, but elaborating further and thinking bigger. So, with Suudelmilla, Karkkiautomaatti moved from cult classics to releasing a straight-up classic.

Suudelmilla is brimming with honest ambition, abandoning the quickfire format and instead opting for longer song lengths which allow the band to expand and adapt their writing in ways they were restricted from before. The keyboards and organs have become a definitive part of the band’s sound alongside a generally more layered production style with all kinds of vintage sounds and sampled sound effects bouncing wildly like they’re overflowing, and the band have all but switched out of the tongue-in-cheek punked-up pop in favour of more analytical songcraft and indulgement in new ideas. Thus, you end up with unprecedented moments such as the psychedelic breakdown of “Nyt heitän arpakuution” that practically interrupts the song’s ordinary flow, “Yks-kaks-motocross” that could have soundtracked a video game action sequence, the atmospheric instrumental “Kemijoki” that stretches its soft textures across over seven minutes, and the bizarro tropicalia of “Rio Wamba” and “Wambada”. But the absolute best part of of Suudelmilla is how breaking away from their conventions underlines and emphasises Kuusela’s talent for songcraft, because those sweet indie pop melodies are now paired with songs that give them the throne they deserve. Any Anglospheric peer of the band would’ve killed to have the gigantic “Susan” in their back catalogue, “Minne vaan” and its swirling guitars and genuinely epic extended finale is quite possibly the best thing Karkkiautomaatti ever released, and the frolicking “Seikkailuun” even landed the band with a genuine radio hit which feels bizarre given how whimsical it is. As if to prove a point, “Toinen onneen vie” appears on Suudelmilla once more, this time polished to perfection with a new drive underneath and hunger in its eyes, crowning itself for the throne it was destined to be after making its initial EP appearance.

Suudelmilla is undoubtedly the highlight of the entire compilation and the key reason why Karkkiautomaatti have retained their relevance to date rather than ending up as a curio for musical archivists. As charming and lovely as the majority of their discography can be, the first few albums and EPs are a scattershot display split between what’s actually good fun and what’s just pleasant filler. Meanwhile, Suudelmilla has become an iconic and influential part of the Finnish independent music canon, and so much of what would take place in the Finndie scene in the decade after its release would be coloured in its shades - and it remains just as charismatic and magical today. That the band amicably split shortly after the release of Suudelmilla (for no apparent reason that I can find) just further enhances its legacy: for their last act they captured a lightning in a bottle. and in doing so closed off a short but genuinely unique career in a way that no one could have predicted. The existence of Kaikilla is a small pop cultural act of importance, and a wonderful way to dig into a truly memorable discography even if after the matter it's the second disc that ends up getting most of the airtime.

Physically: Basic 2-CD jewel case, with a big booklet with the band's biography in detail, various interviews with peers, etc.