Welcome

Kalle Vainio (b.1986) is a composer, sound artist and lecturer who graduated from the Art University, Sibelius Academy with Master of music degree in 2012, where he currently teaches composition. Vainio is deeply interested in exploring sounds from various objects and instruments using field recordings, tape recorders and preparation of instruments. Using these techniques he's able to find sounds somewhere in between ordinary -  sounds that aren't usually associated with the original sound source. The abroad range of works have been compositions, performances, audiovisual concerts and multi-art works; contemporary compositions for Harri Kuusijärvi, Susanne Kujala, Jonne Grans and Tapiola Sinfoniette etc. The Subjects of Vainio’s works often deal with nature and different manifestations of experiencing time through minimalism and the study of timbres. Vainio draws deep inspiration from pioneering figures and musical thinkers such as John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, and Terry Riley

Recently, his new composition for saxophone quartet, Weaving Waves, was performed by the New Thread Quartet in New York (The DiMenna Center) and Philadelphia (Bowerbird series). Additionally, Vainio has been selected as the Finnish representative for the Northern Connection initiative, for which he is creating an immersive audio installation titled COW for the KLANG Festival in Denmark.

Vainio has released eight Project Vainiolla solo albums Fragile Tape Music (SoundGhost 2026), The Land Where It Always Rains (Vainiolla Sounds 2025), Undulate (Shimmering Moods Records 2024), Biosignatures (Rohs Records 2023), Waves of Inner Peace (Slow-tone Collages 2022), Nocturnal (2017), Metamorphosis (2016) and Animus (2015). Vainio has performed his music in many festivals and concert halls across the world. To name a few: Flow Festival Helsinki, Lux Helsinki, Classical:NEXT, Tallinn Music Week, Time of Music, Musica Nova etc.

He is also a very active film composer scoring twenty original scores for various film productions including award-winning documentary films and Alli Haapasalo's Tell Everyone (Kerro kaikille) (co-composed / Vilma Jää)

Quotes from the press:

Film Score: Tell Everyone (Kerro kaikille)

"The timeless music composed by Vilma Jää and Kalle Vainio, played with period-appropriate instruments, is a central part of the atmosphere." – Kaleva

"Tell Everyone also deserves a mention for its excellent music, created by Vilma Jää and Kalle Vainio." – Päivi Valotie, Turun Sanomat

Project Vainiolla: Waves of Inner Peace "A work on the transience of beauty – tape recorders take center stage in Kalle Vainio's project." – Arttu Tolonen, Soundi

"Suruvesi album is a visual, earth-shattering, and unprejudiced journey. The piano sighs, strikes, and shatters, blending into the haze of the human voice, acoustic and electronic instruments, and field recordings." – Venla-Vanamo Asikainen

 

Art/Work::::

 

Liquid Drones is an audiovisual performance exploring perception through gradual transformation.A portable harmonium is mechanically altered so that tones emerge only at the edge of activation. Reeds vibrate partially, producing unstable pitches that hover between clarity and diffusion. The sound is routed through a network of two Nagra reel-to-reel tape recorders, creating evolving delay structures and the subtle degradation of generation loss. Microtonal beating, sustained airflow, and shifting tape repetitions produce a dense yet slowly transforming sonic field in which structure emerges only through sustained listening.In parallel, a live macro transmission captures a frozen surface melting in real time. Under magnification, crystalline formations gradually lose definition. Edges soften, textures dissolve, and what appears static reveals itself as continuous change.Working below the threshold of spectacle, the performance unfolds through subtle variation rather than dramatic events. Sound and image remain in a state of continuous becoming, inviting the audience to experience attention not as a means of observation, but as the material through which the work takes shape.

Sound art, Installations and musique concrète:

 

The Land Where It Always Rains is an immersive multimedia installation by multidisciplinary artist Kalle Vainio that weaves together reel-to-reel tape machines, field recordings, and video projections into a meditative exploration of rain, memory, and continuous cycles.

Conceptually built from the physical and atmospheric phenomena of rain, the work utilizes reel-to-reel tape machines running field-recorded loops of varying lengths. Recorded on tape using vintage microphones, the material carries subtle mechanical noise, physical friction, and temporal instability. Operating through internal speakers, the machines form a distributed, multi-channel soundscape where the loops slowly drift in and out of phase. This phasing mechanism creates shifting densities and temporal overlaps—an ever-changing acoustic environment where no rainfall pattern ever repeats identically. Rather than simply representing rain, the installation reconstructs its presence through layered temporal systems, allowing sound and video projections (by Ville Hyvönen) to form an ongoing, immersive condition rather than a fixed composition.

Across its iterations—including presentations at Galleria Utopia (Sound Art Society Finland) in August 2024 and Flow Festival Helsinki in 2025—the work examines the intersection of mechanical repetition, natural process, and human recollection. The circular motion of the tape loops directly echoes both the natural water cycle and the rhythmic, conditional nature of memory.

This connection to recollection is framed through nyctinasty—the botanical gesture of petals folding inward at night or under the weight of rain to protect pollen and conserve energy. Considered through the lens of human experience, memory similarly folds inward against the storm or the flood of experience, protecting its fragile core in the shaded chambers of the mind. Just as shifting light and atmosphere coax blossoms open again, human recollection responds cyclically to sensory triggers. Within this environment—punctuated by symbolic shelters like an everyday umbrella—the installation invites sustained listening within an evolving landscape where exposure, concealment, and analog memory intertwine.

 

Project Vainiolla - Undulate (2024)

"Undulate is an album where everything is played and recorded live with a one take. Vainio is improvising over two reel to reel tape recorders and one cassette player. Tape machines are playing old demo recordings, improvisations or unfinished songs with their own internal speakers. This interaction is like a dance between old fragile memories that gives impulses of creating new ones. Undulate is a journey where you move through foggy dreams until you wake up and the sun is shining." Instruments: Upright piano Uher Report tape machines Sony TCM-5000 Cassette player."

https://shimmeringmoodsrecords.bandcamp.com/album/undulate

Project Vainiolla - Biosignatures (2023)

 

Project Vainiola is releasing its fifth full-length album Biosignatures. The album explores different organic sound fields which were inspired by studying the growth mechanisms of fungal and bacterial mycelia. Vainio has collaborated with research doctor Wim van Eck, whose 'Evolving Game Terrains' time-lapse videos provided the music with a specific growth platform. On the album you can hear various keyboard instruments such as: prepared piano, toy piano, felt piano, grand piano etc.

 

Project Vainiolla - Waves of Inner Peace (2022)

 

In the composition one can hear e.g. string orchestra, Buchla 200e and Serge modular synthesizer, prepared piano and five-string kantele. Every recorded sound has passed through an analog tape such as reel to reel, elcaset or cassette recorders.

 

The Red List - Simulation I/VII  (live video)

Composition-installation for pipe organs, accordion, tape machines, live-electronics and light design. The piece researches the extinction of species, the Holocene extinction also referred as the sixth mass-extinction.

 

Can You Hear The Music?

 

Every sound and frame is created from the movement of water. Is it music?

 

You can find all my important works in the ARCHIVE page.