Guardian.co.uk: In a barn on Oxfordshire Park Farm, Finnish musician Kimmo Pohjonen is holding up a microphone to a six-tonne tractor. "Turn the engine over again, please," he asks the farmer. The barn fills with sound. "Beautiful," he says. "Fabulous."
Pohjonen is Finland's most internationally celebrated contemporary musician and, arguably, the world's only avant-garde accordionist.
Pohjonen's current project, Earth Machine Music, involves him sampling sounds from four English farms, before returning to Finland where he will compose music from these samples. He is returning to perform at these same farms later this month and, at each concert, will blast the samples of that specific farm from his accordion while the farmers pitch in with occasional live tractor accompaniment.
"An environmental art piece" is how he describes it. "I grew up in a small village in northern Finland, so I'm used to being on farms, familiar with their sounds. I like the idea of making music with everyday farm machinery."
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