Kalle Vainio - Finnish composer

Welcome


Kalle Vainio (b.1986) is a contemporary composer, film music composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer who graduated from the Art University, Sibelius Academy with Master of music degree in 2012. Vainio is deeply interested in using extended playing techniques and preparation of different instruments such as piano, guitar and kantele. Using these techniques he's able to find sounds somewhere in between ordinary -  sounds that aren't usually associated with the original sound source.

He has released six Project Vainiolla solo albums where prepared piano is the center of attention: Undulate (2024), Biosignatures (2023) Waves of Inner Peace (2022), Nocturnal (2017), Metamorphosis (2016) and Animus (2015). Vainio has performed his music in many festivals and concert halls across the world. To name a few: Flow Festival Helsinki, Lux Helsinki, Classical:NEXT, Tallinn Music Week, Time of Music, Musica Nova etc. He's also very active film music composer and teacher/lecturer at the Sibelius Academy folk music department.

"Simplicity and minimalism are very intriguing starting points for me -  it's like zooming into something very simple and then finding something truly complex and yet again something very simple."

 

Latest works:

 

The Land Where It Always Rains (2024)

The Land Where It Always Rains is an immersive tape machine installation where tape loops creates everchanging surreal rain world. Each tape machine plays different variations of rainfall. Every sound is recorded with an old Uher Report ree-to-reel recorder using vintage microphones. Installation also includes one white umbrella and video projection.

Beside the installation there is also an album release 'The Land Where It Always Rains' - limited edition vinyl.

Project Vainiolla - Undulate (2024)

 

"Undulate is an album where everything is played and recorded live with a one take. Vainio is improvising over two reel to reel tape recorders and one cassette player. Tape machines are playing old demo recordings, improvisations or unfinished songs with their own internal speakers. This interaction is like a dance between old fragile memories that gives impulses of creating new ones. Undulate is a journey where you move through foggy dreams until you wake up and the sun is shining." Instruments: Upright piano Uher Report tape machines Sony TCM-5000 Cassette player."

https://shimmeringmoodsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/undulate

Project Vainiolla - Biosignatures (2023)

 

Project Vainiola is releasing its fifth full-length album Biosignatures. The album explores different organic sound fields which were inspired by studying the growth mechanisms of fungal and bacterial mycelia. Vainio has collaborated with research doctor Wim van Eck, whose 'Evolving Game Terrains' time-lapse videos provided the music with a specific growth platform. On the album you can hear various keyboard instruments such as: prepared piano, toy piano, felt piano, grand piano etc.

 

Project Vainiolla - Waves of Inner Peace (2022)

 

In the composition one can hear e.g. string orchestra, Buchla 200e and Serge modular synthesizer, prepared piano and five-string kantele. Every recorded sound has passed through an analog tape such as reel to reel, elcaset or cassette recorders.

Project Vainiolla - Memory Clouds (studio live video)


"Those drifting clouds. Fragile memories. They are shaping the very essence of who we are."

The Red List - Simulation I/VII  (live video)


Composition-installation for pipe organs, accordion, tape machines, live-electronics and light design. The piece researches the extinction of species, the Holocene extinction also referred as the sixth mass-extinction.

Katoava hetki / J.S.Bach - Prelude e-minor


Video art created for painting Katoava hetki (A Disappearing Moment) combined with J.S.Bach's prelude played by Susanne Kujala.

Can you hear the music?
"Everything's created from the water."

Murhan DNA, TV-series
Directed by Tommi Hakko, original score by Kalle Vainio


 

Sound design
Elevator music for (Kone company's) design elevator for Näsinneula, Tampere

You can find all my important works in the ARCHIVE page.