Mika Vainio’s final performance in the UK before his death in 2017 is set to be released alongside a collection of photographs by Joséphine Michel.
Before Vainio’s death in April 2017, he’d been working on another collaborative project with Michel, intended as the follow-up to their 2015 book-album Halfway To White, and in March 2017, Michel traveled to Oslo to show Vainio photos she had taken for the project which was given the title The Heat Equation. During that visit, Michel captured a photo of Vainio which features in the 100-page book which will make up part of the release.
Vainio came close to completing the recordings he was producing for the project when his sequencer broke down in the spring of 2017, causing him to lose his work. As a result, the only record of his work for the project left was from the board recording of a 2016 live set that he payed at Contra Pop festival on Ramsgate Beach. That recording was thought to be lost until a backup was discovered 18 months later.
The recording has been mastered by Russell Haswell for the release and will feature in full on a CD as part of the package along with the book featuring Michel’s photos and an essay by Jeremy Millar.
The Heat Equation will be released through Touch on November 1 and is limited to 750 copies.
Earlier this year, Sähkö, the label co-founded by Vainio, launched an archive series dedicated to his recordings.
