Mika Vainio

Sometimes known as Ø, Mika Vainio was the co-founder of Finnish techno duo Pan Sonic (known as Panasonic until 1998), whose innovative brand of blistering rhythmic noise and uncompromising minimalism transformed them into one of the most popular exports from the Northern European techno underground. Unlike Pan Sonic's harder, comparatively more dancefloor-oriented gear, however, Vainio's Ø work tended more toward the ambient and experimental, wedding sparse machine noises with shifting rhythms, stubbornly unmusical sonic textures, and assorted channel separation weirdness. His...