Jaakko is back, along with his long hair and his sparkling pop music. Dissolution follows on from the sunny Out of Touch, the cover picturing the Finn sprawled out on the sand, and who's still under-recognised music got us dancing with its polished and airy 80s synth-wave melodies. At only seven tracks, this mini-album opens with Out of Touch and falls into the category of sophisticated ‘indoor’ dance tracks, with a more complex and dense instrumentation, sounding more like Ariel Pink than ever before (I Am Looking Forward). There is a surprise in store in the form of part two of the sensual Conceptual Mediterranean, which radiated with its scintillating synths and fragile feminine voice on Out of Touch. Here it is more of a case of thick layers of saxophone, chilly keyboards (Uutiset), heavy usage of the bass and singing in his native language. He is joined by the Taiwanese Yu-Ching Huang, notably on The Source of Absolute Knowledge, a sort of return to the cold wave genre. More enigmatic and dance-driven, less sensual but still finely produced, Dissolution is slightly less accessible than we are accustomed to, as it invites us inside to a Berlin basement for reflection instead of out in the open. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz