Sperm - Ssh!



Mathieu referred to this album in his comments on the preceding Shit Spangled Banner banner release. Several years ago, I was making one of my periodic visits to his site to check on the latest Sunburned releases (John's not that good at letting folks know what is released...or maybe it's me). I already owned the No Dolby vinyl and had a look to see what he thought. One of my better decisions!

I had never heard of Sperm (the band obviously) and the reference intrigued me so I tracked it down. This is quite simply one of the most inspired releases that I have listened to!

This was released as Shh! Heinäsirkat on O Records in 1970. It was re-released on vinyl by De Stijl in 2008 (and is out of print there...I bought that edition and the sound from the vinyl is wonderful). It was also re-released by Dharmakustannus as a cdr in 1998 as Ssh! It has an extra four tracks that are right up there with the work on the original release. Naturally, I had to buy that as well...and this is what is posted here.

I know the names of these citizens of Finland. There is a cast-list here to rival Amon Düül. In quantity. I have never found any information on any other work by these people...I'm hoping that there may be other things out there that have been avoiding me. Maybe this is all that she wrote...but good god...what a ride!

This album manages to cover around 75% of the ground of the music I have ever posted here. On one album.

Shh!

3 comments:

Bronze Age UFO 6 June 2012 at 23:41  

Pekka Airaksinen still performs. He even was in DC a couple of years ago for the Sonic Circuits fest.

badgerstump 7 June 2012 at 19:21  

I know Pekka is still at it...I meant work by Sperm as a collective. It seems strange that they could produce such a brilliant album and not move on to "the difficult second album". Perhaps that is just the way it was!

Mind you, I can think of a few thousand that should have realised they has fulfilled their potential and just fucked off...

seas 29 May 2018 at 04:59  

You're blog is my 'home sweet home'.