RinneRadio (FI)

Long past are the days when RinneRadio was described with the words ‘machine music’, ‘electrojazz’ and ‘technoethno’ or when its music was characterised as experimental. Of course, this is also understandable, as there were very few jazz bands in the 1990s that did not have a ‘real’ bassist or drummer, but only some kind of ‘engineer’ tinkering around with strange electric gadgets. In RinneRadio, whose line-up has changed many times, these engineers have performed with the ensemble under different monikers for thirty years.

‘Machine-assisted’ music no longer raises anyone’s eyebrows, but the relentless passage of time has been kind to RinneRadio, which was founded by Tapani Rinne (b. 1962) in 1988. The ensemble has been able to reinvent itself several times and maintain its distinctive style, whose most characteristic ‘human voice’ is still Rinne’s clarinets, particularly the bass clarinet.

But now, in 2026, there is a good reason to bring back the concepts of electronic music and electrojazz, as the RinneRadio trio has returned to its early club roots, ‘dance music’, after thirteen years. Released in September 2025, the seventeenth album of the ensemble contains more crackling, edgy and pulsating rhythmic music, as one might deduce from the title of the album, which suggests a steady, even tempo. It is dubbed short and sweet as 4/4, even though the only song on the entire album named after a time signature is rather teasingly 6/4.

The always full late night performance at Telakka will reveal how this new-old dance music and beat-driven RinneRadio works in a club-like cultural restaurant. But the chairs and tables shouldn’t be pushed to the side, at least not just yet, as Rinne says that the Telakka set will probably fall somewhere in between. “A large part of our music works in both settings, as we can play the same song with different emphases. And of course, we can also make spontaneous decisions on stage.”