Ahti & Ahti is the duo of Finnish sound artists Marja Ahti and Niko-Matti Ahti. Operating on the fringes of the musique concrète tradition, their work combines recordings of spaces and events, beings and objects, carefully aligned in an associative way.
Nokivesi (soot-water) embraces sound montage and cut up conversations alongside instrumental and electronic sound, combining the complexity of the field-recorded sounds and compositional sensitivity. Originally created as a radiophonic piece for the Oscillations Radio Marathon in 2020, the piece outlines a fragmented story told by two voices about a person living isolated on a remote island, a tragic and comic figure. The hermit kept in touch with the nearby residents, but he also stimulated their curiosity and imagination living apart from the mainstream society.
The story lays the foundation to a musical work that combines acousmatic sound and documentary, utilizing a variety of thematically associated field recordings, modular synthesizers and digital processing in order to create a sonic environment that consists of a number of discrete musical parts. These parts are intermittently interrupted, but also connected by the voices of two elderly persons.
Nokivesi is released in a limited edition of 280 copies. 50 copies are out as a special edition, with a handmade gatefold cover with monochromatic linoleum prints by Moras Marios. It also includes a photo of the original cover and an insert with a translation of the dialogue.
