Mika Vainio^FI

Mika Vainio, currently based in Berlin, is one half of the minimal electronic duo Pan Sonic from Finland, (the other half is Ilpo Väisänen). Before starting Pan Sonic in beginning of the 90's Mika Vainio has played electronics and drums as part of the early Finnish industrial and noise scene. His solo works, under his own name and under aliases like Ø, are known for their analogue warmth and electronic harshness. Be it abstract drone works or minimal avant techno, Vainio is always creating unique, physical sounds.

Unlike Pan Sonic's harder, comparatively more dancefloor-oriented gear, however, Vainio's tends more toward the ambient and experimental, wedding sparse machine noises with shifting rhythms, stubbornly unmusical sonic textures, and assorted channel separation weirdness.

Vainio's Ø releases stretch back to the early '90s (predating his association with Panasonic by a few years). His earliest work appeared on the Corporate label before landing with Finnish techno institution Sahko in 1993, where he's released most of his material, including three albums and a handful of EPs.

He has released on labels like Touch, Wavetrap and Sähkö and he has been producing with Björk, Alan Vega of Suicide, Keiji Haino and Chicks on Speed.