Saxophonist Pauli Lyytinen discovered a new level of creativity when visiting Las Pozas in 2006. Having immersed himself in performing live and studying in Sweden and Brazil, he was no stranger to travelling. Nevertheless, experiencing the weird and wonderful garden of surrealist poet Edward James deep in the rainforest of Mexico became a game changer. The journey that had begun in the Eastern Finnish city of Kuopio in 1983 had led the composer and improviser to a point in place and time where he became deeply aware of what it means to be an artist and how important it is to keep an open mind.
The impact of early paragons from Juhani Aaltonen to Keith Jarrett still echo in much of Lyytinen’s output but the dominant trend in recent years has been the increase of minimalist tendencies inspired by Henryk Górecki and Midori Takada. In contrast to this exploration of minute changes, time has been consumed by the large audiovisual solo project Self-Portrait. Upon completion, this juxtaposition of electroacoustic textures and picturesque photographs will follow the 2016 eponymous cd/dvd debut by the one-man band Pauli Lyytinen Machinery.