Doktor Kettu

Finland's Doktor Kettu is Petri Hagner, Jussi Lehtisalo, Tuomas Niskanen, Alpo Nummelin and Jouko Salenius. Jussi Lehtisalo is probably best known for being part of the tightly structured krautrock of Circle and the stoner doom of Pharoah Overlord. With his side-project, Doktor Kettu, we're given formless and improvised soundscapes made by three guitars, bass, and drums.

There really are some great attempts to capture the experience of a Doktor Kettu release: "True caveman rock, but under heavy sedation. Like a bunch of semi-comatose zombies letting their guitars feedback deep in a tunnel while the drummer sometimes wakes up, stunned, hitting the skins a few times and then succumbing to the world of the undead once again"; "a Finnish drug thing you wouldn't understand"; "imagine a cross between Circle and Thuja" or "imagine Hawkwind or Acid Mothers Temple locked in a cave with broken instruments"; "installments from some massive on-going jam still happening right now"; "slow, meandering, very stoned ambient psych jamming to the max" and quite possibly my favourite..."imagine if you had neighbors who lived below you in a WWII bunker and all they did all day was listen to certain Fushitsusha albums...this is what you might hear through the floor." Basically, Doktor Kettu sounds like a rock'n'roll band being thrown down a well in low gravity.

The Kettu project appears to have been born simply because five friends wanted to get together to enjoy themselves! No info, no publicity and no tours that I'm aware of. The first five cdrs were all released simultaneousy with no fanfare and very little information in editions of a 100 a piece and quickly disappeared. The sixth arrived quickly after in an edition of 50. The recently released cd appears to have been recorded quite some time earlier, so who knows if we will ever get any more fresh Kettu...I hope so!

Jussi himself has described Doktor Kettu as being an "apocalyptic drone-free-psychedelic-low-fi-massacre.....three guitars, bass and drums"

Go on! You know you want to.....

2003 - Doktor Kettu - Black Zenith [super metsä]
2003 - Doktor Kettu - High Revolution [super metsä]
2003 - Doktor Kettu - I Really Like Diamonds [super metsä]
2003 - Doktor Kettu - Kriegsphilosophie [super metsä]
2003 - Doktor Kettu - Yksi Miekka Yksi Kirves [super metsä]
2004 - Doktor Kettu - Gobmi Kalansikov [haamumaa]
2009 - Doktor Kettu - Soft Delirium [super metsä]