Two names.
The same restless musical mind.

H VIII is an album of musique concrète. It has no concern for traditional keys, nor for the rules of conduct imposed upon music. The material was originally composed for the stage work H8, which told of King Henry VIII of England (1491–1547) and his complex and violent relationships with his many wives.

The letters written by Henry and his wives to one another, and to the dignitaries of the realm, provided the compositions with their stories and texts. Their winding, centuries-old language sits within harmony torn apart and spun through the wringer of a multidimensional washing machine like a false morel in a concrete jungle.

Strange as it may sound, the music was originally written in notation, from which it seeped and migrated into the realm of electronic noise. The music and texts take human form in the inspired madness of Anni Koskinen, a specialist in Renaissance music and the soloist on H VIII. Without her, none of this would have been possible.

Ismo Laakso's unsettling soundscapes bend themselves into lucid soprano arias as readily as into infernal fits of hysteria. How, then, should one approach H VIII? Experience it as sound sculpture, perhaps, or as architecture unfolding within an acoustic environment, if you wish.

In a certain sense, H VIII continues the work of Laakso's long-running group AD, even though it appears under a different name.