Lapsikuninkaan Fanfaari by Juho Toivonen

Juho Toivonen’s Lapsikuninkaan Fanfaari is a work of paradox — both intimate and expansive, tender yet eerie, a fanfare that seems to drift from the past into the present like a half-remembered dream.

A slight departure from his previous releases, this album finds Toivonen in a more song-oriented mode, though still deeply embedded in his signature world of loops, droning textures, and spectral piano melodies. The album is in stereo, with a richer, more mature palette that includes trumpet contributions from Raimo Sinnemäki on tracks 1 and 4. The inclusion of vocals — more present here than in past works — adds another human layer to its ghostly, fragmented atmosphere. At its core, Lapsikuninkaan Fanfaari is an exercise in stretching time and shaping memory’s shifting terrain. Toivonen describes his music as something akin to the faded recollection of a melody – what music might sound like when recalled after years of experiencing silence.

This blurred approach to sound is underscored by the use of an off-key Walheim piano, a recurring presence in his recordings, and the warmth of a four-track tape recorder, lending the album its organic, tactile quality. The album unfolds with the logic of a fever dream, a narrative of some sorts, but one that refuses to settle. Inspirations range from personal touchstones — childhood, stuffed animals, bridges, love, and hate. Much like with the previous two long players Toivonen’s creative process remains rooted in improvisation, with compositions emerging from spontaneous gestures before being sculpted into their final form. This release marks the second chapter in a trilogy — a self-mythological journey that begun in birth and early childhood via Sisarusten Toistuva Uni, and now unfolds tenderly into imagined futures and alternative realities.

Lapsikuninkaan Fanfaari is not just an album but an invitation — to step into a world where memory is fluid, where time folds in on itself, and where music is less a fixed entity than a ghostly echo of what once was, or what could have been.

Recorded during autumn 2024 and mastered by Tyko Tuulivaara. Edition of 500 copies. Comes with insert.

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