Verneri Pohjola & Mika Kallio - Animal Image (2018)

Finnish Jazz trumpeter Verneri Pohjola and percussionist Mika Kallio combine to create an original soundtrack to the extraordinary, poetic, documentary film Animal Image.

Animal Image is a soundtrack album to a poetic documentary about the infinite relationship between man and animal. Edited to an improvised score by Finnish trumpet Verneri Pohjola and percussionist Mika Kallio, the film illustrates the emotional bond between man and animal beyond the boundaries of written language or fictional storylines.

The movie depicts nature-photographer and writer Heikki Willamo's journey to the landscape of the post ice-age northern wilderness to explore man's ancient relationship to his prey and Willamo's personal encounters with the inhabitants of the northern woods. Man, bear, sky and fire: the Finnish forest is a place like nowhere else, a place of dreams and the imagination, an ancient place where its denizens live in the shadows. Becoming an animal by Perttu Saksa

Animal Image is a poetic documentary film built around original music by Verneri Pohjola and Mika Kallio. The movie depicts an imagined view of man’s ancient relationship with animals. The music accompanies you, creating an emotional language between man and animal – unconstrained by the boundaries of written communication or fictional anthropomorphic narratives.

The music is an invitation towards becoming an animal. To unthink identity and subjectivity. Listen. Free from definition, from body to flesh, where the one is a figure of unity and strength, while the other is in an interminable manifestation of disarticulation, a condition of freedom for animals or whatever it is we are.

Becoming an animal is where the human and the animal enter into a functional alliance. Musical improvisation is dialogue without speech, built around the similar framework – including rules and forms – we use in spoken conversation or social structures. Listen. Lose the language. Listen and feel. Then imagine a language. Imagine a form of life. Perttu Saksa



Tracklist:
01. Where Do You Feel at Hom
02. Outside
03. Foxplay
04. Man
05. Goshawk’s Dream
06. Animal Image

Personnel:
Verneri Pohjola, trumpet, electronics
Mika Kallio, drums and gongs

Produced by Perttu Saksa and Verneri Pohjola
Recorded at Finnvox Studios by Risto Hemmi
Mixed by Mikko Raita at Studio Kekkonen