With her haunting vocals and shamanic melodies, the Finnish composer and musician Merja Kokkonen takes her audience on a journey to other worlds. Since the experimental, psychedelic folk music of her early albums – her first of four albums on Fonal Records came out in 2004 – she has long embraced "warped and left-field" electronics and vocals. With releases on labels such as Ecstatic Peace!, Monika Enterprise, and Svart, last year’s Angel Tape on Helsinki-based Other Power was a welcome and powerful return for the esteemed cult figure after a five-year hiatus. Perhaps Kim Gordon put it best when she said, “Islaja’s music is a dream, abstract and enchanted but grounded in the earthiness of a Finnish forest floor.”
