Intro: Jussi Alaraasakka is 47 and started his sound career when he was a kid. Back in the 90’s, when he was 13, he started DJ-ing along with some friends. He was mildly judged because of his wild choice: mixing 90s german techno with Finnish disco.
But this only managed to give him a nudge of courage to go on to his own path, minding his business and creating his own kind of.
After leaving behind a business he started and failed, he became a freelance sound artist (with no education background in this area!) and joined TaikaBox as a sound artist, and also became a mentor for the younger generation.
How did you get into the art of sound?
At the start of my career, in the early 90’s, I was 13 or 14 years old, I decided to be a DJ with my friends.
And I’m from a small village here in northern Finland where there were a couple of thousand people living. But we started DJ’ing and arranging disco parties for the youngsters.
At the same time, I was the main DJ in the group and I kind of felt I had the responsibility to have a good evening and give everybody good vibes.
Also, I have never been very much into popular music, I was listening to techno music back then, 90’s German techno. It’s a very interesting combination. And my DJ mates, they were always saying to me ”Jussi, don’t play that techno so much, people are afraid of it. Play that f*cking pop music like everybody else”.
And I think then it started to not think so much about what other people think.
I started to be quite good at mixing disco music and techno. It’s kind of a secret mix that incorporates some techno into the disco, so yeah, that’s somehow the foundation for the whole performing thing for me.
But when I turned 18, I moved away as an exchange student in Australia. And that was kind of a turning point. And there, I got more and more into this kind of a techno and electronic music culture.
And when I got back from there, the disco things just didn’t interest me anymore. I started to arrange only techno parties more and more.
But still, I’m a professional musician, but I don’t know how to play in a classical way.
I don’t have any studies and I haven’t been practicing anything traditional, I don’t know anything about music theory. The sound has been always there for me, the foundation of the music.
I really like to modify and play with the sound and experiment and research different ways of making sounds. I enjoy a lot just going outside with a recorder and record things and then modify them.
Given this background, how did it feel to work with other music/sound artists?
It was not easy at first to play with other musicians, because I didn’t know what notes or chords they were playing, so I just had to trust my ears and my intuition, in order not to ruin everything.
After those first steps, it felt very natural to just jam and improvise. It’s been basically one of the main things since I got brave enough to just start jamming and playing and not caring if I play something wrong.
When you’re playing with professional or very, very talented musicians and the jam is going nicely, there’s always this small fear that if I play something wrong, I kind of ruin everything. And it was quite a big challenge for me not to think about that too much and just play and go with the flow.
How did you meet the TaikaBox team?
I kind of opened myself the new world and that’s how I met Tanja and John and we had a couple of performances and gigs together and we just realized that we can do a lot of things together and really not thinking about those rules, but just think about or improvise and be in the moment and just go with the flow.
Well, I’ve been, let’s say, for the past eight years I’ve been doing sound arts and electronic music and I also held workshops related to sound art and electronic music. So, professionally, let’s say for the past six years.
Eight years ago there was a big change in my life and I had a small business and then it went kind of bad and my life changed completely. Now, the business is not working anymore.
So, I had a lot of free time and I did not know what to do. And I basically decided to jump into the darkness of the unknown. I decided that I want to try out if this professional artist career is something that I can achieve.
And yeah, well, here we are. Of course, it’s not been the easiest way, but also, at the same time it’s been very good and very rewarding. Of course, before, I was kind of my own boss, but at the same time there were so many things that I did as a freelancer, mostly projects that I wanted to do and that have been very interesting and inspiring.
And I just jumped into the void to try this. I wanted to see if I could make it.
We started to do more and more projects together and I got to be in DanceHack, I think five or six years ago, I can’t recall it now and I’ve been with those guys ever since, and there’s been maybe one or two other musicians in DanceHack and it’s been really nice.
Basically I can cover the sound designing and then there are those real musicians who can play and create some nice, traditional sound, traditional music. And it’s a very good combination to the spirit of the DanceHack. It’s kind of exploration and playful and you never really know what’s gonna happen next.
And how would you describe your experience with Taika Box and the DanceHack for the past years? What does this work mean to you? What gets you excited?
Well, it’s absolutely one of the best collaborations and partnerships that I have had. I guess it’s the playfulness and the exploration and the very good spirit and the teamwork feeling.
Because there’s maybe about 10 people from all around the world that are coming and gathering for a week in the same space. And at the same time, we kind of get to know each other while also creating and trying out new things that involve technology and the movement and the sound and everything.
So the atmosphere and the spirit of this hacking experience is so nice and positive. It’s absolutely one of the best things that I know of and something that I’ve been lucky to be part of for many years now.
And also, Tanja and John are professionals in what they do. Tanja with the movement and the dance and John for the tech side of things and all the visual stuff that he creates, along with these, it’s the professionalism that they have in order to arrange these kinds of events.
And of course, how they managed to get this EU project that Romania and Hungary are now involved in and we can start to really grow the DanceHack. So, yeah, a lot of good reasons to be very happy to work with them.
What does success mean in your work, besides plugging the right cables in the right sources?
That’s a very interesting question. Of course, it is the feeling of the performance. When you are creating something and you have a good feeling about that.
Of course, if you get some money, if you get some money out of that and you can see the money in your bank account, that’s not shit either, either. But I cannot think that the money or that the money things are so, so important.
The reaction from another artist or the audience or when I get the feeling that somebody else was also liking it or is liking it.
And I guess in a way it’s a success that I’ve been managing to do this, like I said in the beginning, that I was jumping into the unknown and I didn’t know what was going to happen and I didn’t have a clear plan. I just wanted to try out things. And now these kinds of very nice things are happening and I feel I’m doing something right.
For example, I’ve been having those workshops or let’s say electronic music workshops with youngsters, let’s say 20-something youngsters that might be a bit lost in their life or they have some social difficulties or whatnot and most of the people or most of the youngsters that come to the workshop see a lot of synthesizers and a lot of cables and everything looks very complicated and they don’t know how the music or how the sounds are made.
But after a few days, they kind of go to the next level with themselves. They start to play and they lose their fear of the technology or the fear of the synthesizer.
And they kind of go further. And when they get into this, it gives me so much joy to see people doing something that I did a couple of years ago, maybe on a smaller level.
And also with older people and also with younger people, of course, like, let’s say, 10 or 12 year old kids, they are so curious and they don’t have this fear or these barriers to start to try something else.
But of course then there’s a little bit different rewards from there. They start to make some nice sounds and they kind of just go really with the flow with that. And that’s another reward.
You’ve been working with music technology basically since the 90’s. What are the most valuable lessons that you’ve learned so far?
Well, I think it’s that you have to do your own shit, even though you don’t necessarily know exactly what that is. But you have to keep doing it, and a big part of that shit is trying to find out what it is.
And try not to think too much about what the others think about you while you are doing your shit. Don’t be nervous or scared to be in front of the people watching and listening to you and kind of really judging you in a way.
So you don’t have to think of them judging you because they can enjoy it. It’s not so serious after all. Of course, it can and it has to be, and there’s place for the seriousness at some point and so on.
But it seems that so many people, performers or visual artists or whatever, kind of already think too many times about what will be the others thinking of the outcome, especially if you don’t know exactly what is the outcome. So it’s basically very illogical.
There’s no point in thinking so much about those people. And yeah, I think it’s one of the biggest things that helped me to evolve and go further.
What’s the key in collaboration with other artists in tour work?
Well, I would guess that it’s kind of transparent and open communication. Also in this sense that.
For example now, we are both communicating not with our native language and still trying to be as open as possible and explain things even though I’m not sure if you get everything that I’m saying.
So I think that is the main point there. Communication is and will be one of the foundation and the most critical part of collaborations.
And there’s this kind of unspoken communication, which is more than what happens after these flows of ideas or inspiration, and then it starts to happen some kind of a connection beyond the words.
Now that I’m thinking about this, I think it’s very, it’s one of the most important things there.
It’s about a lot of clarity. You know, ”clear is kind”, just as Brene Brown put it. Yes.
And really just It’s also at the same time, you’re a bit vulnerable. You open yourself and there’s this open communication and then it comes to this point that ”should I care if I’m opening myself too much?” or ”am I revealing something from myself that I don’t necessarily want to do?”.
And if you don’t think about that too much, then the communication will be much more open and kind of fruitful in a way.
And I also think this is where you get your best work, as an artist, in any kind of collaboration, in any kind of work. I think the best work happens when you are open and transparent and vulnerable, as you just said.
Yeah. And this is something that I’ve been learning slowly and really learned by doing, with unbelievable, very talented, sensitive and open-minded people from all around the world, just really doing stuff, not thinking so much about ”what is that we are doing?”.
Is there anything that people don’t understand about your work?
Okay, let’s say it like this. It’s an old-fashioned culture quite strong here, in the North and by that I mean that the people doing art are not as respected as people who are doing something with their hands or having a traditional job, you know?
I would say that my parents really don’t understand what I’m doing and why I’m doing it. It’s not that many days ago when my father said to me that I should get a job. I’m doing the best job of my life!
I respect, of course, and I love my parents, but still there’s quite big differences in the way that we think and see the world.
And when you are from a village of a couple of thousand people, it kind of emphasizes there, you know. Oulu, especially. Now, of course, becoming the cultural capital, this is kind of changing now very quickly here. But still, you don’t have to go very far from the city of Oulu to be in the ”bad country”.
But I think that the atmosphere is changing slowly and of course, the young generation and new generations will be helping this change of course.
Absolutely, I agree because you can already see they’re shifting the perspective, and this only makes more room and more understanding for this kind artistic work.
Of course! It also feels that social media and these populistic things that are happening quite a lot everywhere, it might have this effect on the young people, that either they go on with this or be against this populism. And this kind of extreme thinking is what’s happening everywhere.
What I can see in a way is that there’s also those kinds of barricades, these blocks are forming between the young people and the younger generations.
I think that is a little bit of a concern and maybe through arts and through journalism we could help younger generations to be more open-minded and help people think about new ways or ways that they’re not so used to. I think that is one of the most important roles or tasks of art and artists.