This Empty Flow

This Album

2 CD Set

Eibon Records

Web: http://www.eibonrecords.com/

This Empty Flow was formed in 1994 by Jori Sjöroos and Niko Sirkiä in Turku, Finland. They shared history in the seminal funeral-doom metal band Thergothon. Later in the year they were joined by Aku-Tuomas Mattila, the leader of then rising local goth-electro band Sad Parade.

During 1995 This Empty Flow sent demo versions of four of their songs to Italian Avantgarde Music with whom they signed a record deal. Between September and November This Empty Flow spent 12 days in studio U96 in Pori, Finland and recorded the debut album, Magenta Skycode.

Magenta Skycode was released in March 1996 on Avantgarde Music. It was well received as a superb example of dark pop, with gothic guitar rhythms, ambient riffs and pain ridden lyrics. It is still considered a gothic classic.

During the autumn This Empty Flow started to record the follow-up for Magenta Skycode. Four songs were completed but Avantgarde showing a distinct lack of vision and did not take the project further so these sessions were never completed.

During the summer of 1977 the band made some further demo recordings but the band was seen by its members to be mocing away from the original concept of This Empty Flow. So This Empty Flow dissolved. Various posthumous releases have surfaced.

In 1999, an out-take album called Three Empty Boys was released by Plastic Passion. It included the four songs finished for the second album and seven studio rehearsals / demos recorded in 1995-1997.

In 2000 Plastic Passion released another out-take album in a limited 111 CD-R Edition which was called Useless and Empty Songs.). It contained three studio rehearsals / demos, Of Blossom And Decay and a trip hop remix of Useless made by Jukka Sillanpää.

Nowafter - the compilation album of rare and unreleased material - was released by Eibon Records in February 2001.

In March 2006 Eibon Records has released “The Album” a super double CD collection of The Empty Flow. 10 years after their original release this superb package includes Magenta skycode and a CD of rare cuts, outtakes and demos.

After its demise This Empty Flow have been asked several times to re-unite for gigs but the members have refused. The band's releases remain hard to find, and yet are consider seminal works of dark pop. My take on all this is that they are incredibly under-rated, perhaps being out of the way in Finland they were somehow missed. If they had been in the UK or USA Magenta Skycode would have surely been a major success. Their sound is quite unique, yet has resonances with The Cure, Pink Floyd & Cocteau Twins. The new Eibon release is moving and powerful, it has a melancholy which cuts straight to the heart, it is most highly recommended.

(Some background info from http://nikoskorpio.net/ with appreciation)