
We first posted about the debut album from Finland's Olli Aarni, or Ous Mal , not quite two years ago. His particular take on warped-out, weatherbeaten electronica - cobbled together from an assortment of grainy, organic textures - was pretty instantly recognisable as something special. So it's great that he's made another album! In under two years, Aarni's changed names (to Nuojuva, a reference to his debut Nuojuva Halava ), released an album of remixes of his songs by Preservation artists, and in February will release a second album. It's no small feat: this sounds like [...]

Working at the brighter, gentler end of the lo-fi spectrum, this track from Finland's Ous Mal crackles and writhes in all the right ways. It appears on one of the final releases from the young Olli Aarni under his most familiar moniker, a split cassette with Russia's Bedroom Bear on the fantastic Full Of Nothing label. Aarni's sample-based tracks may use a production method similar to that of hip-hop, with cut up vinyl, cassette and radio samples jammed together to form a new whole, but the result mixes spaced-out [...]

From Karelia with love. Deep from the tremendous beauties of Russia's northwestern Republic of Karelia, the world is blessed with some incredible soundscapes materialized on tape by the magic of magnetism: The tiny, home-run cassette imprint Full Of Nothing has just released a split between Ous Mal and Bedroom Bear . The former is the solo recording project of Olli Aarni from Helsinki, Finland. After a few CDrs and his first full length Nuojuva Halava on Australia's Preservation , the 22-year old artist continues with his slow-burning drone folk of utmost, sweetest [...]

From the Mecca of psychedelic folk music, Finland, comes Ous Mal, project for the 22 year old Helsinki native Olli Aarni. We've been into the monochrome aesthetic of Finnish folk as demonstrated by previous features of Paavoharju , Kuupuu , Hannu , Lau Nau , so it's no wonder we've easily fallen for his previous EP Viime Talvi on Under the Spire . His debut full length "Nuojuva Halava" has been released by The Preservation label from -wait for it- Australia. How the dusty nostalgic ambience of wintery Finland translates to the Australian [...]

Ous Mal - Merilaulu This new record from Finland's Ous Mal sounds waterlogged & weatherbeaten & partially decomposed. But only partially, fortunately for us - you can still hear the plink-plonk piano playing around the searing buzz of the broken down tape and ambient noise and weird electronic references. It's an enchanting combination of some pretty disparate influences; it doesn't take long for the dubstep and hip-hop elements to push through the warped-out folktronica, and the result is surprisingly organic. It crowds you in, but never feels claustrophobic; I don't know how they did [...]

If you read the bios of our writers here at girlpants, one of the things you'll inevitably notice is that every single one of them spends and inordinate amount of time discussing the subject's childhood, generally in fond if overly wacky terms. Mike was born under a bad sign in Death Valley; Ben had an idyllic childhood, filled with boats; Joel matured into a rugged outdoorsman in the wilds of West Boca Raton, while somehow remaining perpetually 13 years old (this part is true); Niina was raised by bears. Jason, well... we're not sure he was ever a child. [...]