Exit to Eternal Slacking - a Finnish ambient music band, the duo of Tom Holm & The Large

BIOGRAPHY

Exit to Eternal Slacking -
a Finnish ambient music band,
the duo of Tom Holm
and The Large

Exit to Eternal Slacking was born in 1999. At least that was the time when Tom Holm & The Large did their first improvised live sessions on two software keyboards on their PC's. Everything was recorded and still nowadays only little - if any - editing is done afterwards on the captured sound material. Tom Holm came up with the name of a line from a pop song called The Way by Fastball. He only left the word "summer" away between Eternal and Slacking on that line and so they had a name. Both were really enthusiastic and exhilarated after these first experiments in the world of performing atmospheric ambient music and decided to go forth on this almost mystical path.

The band during a pause of a recording session in the Kantvik Studios

From using beautiful string chords and such samples as from the moon landing in 1969, birds singing, the fuzz at a Greyhound bus station or a subway train passing by etc. they slowly but inevitably drifted into the realms of even more experimental sounds. They started using everything from the audio tracks of their camcorder tapes to tv and radio programs. New equipment were bought and Tom Holm's guitar-playing background was also something to be exploited in their new music.

In 2001 Tom Holm & The Large were doing probably the best bits since the still unique-sounding first recordings (Atmosphere of a Small Town, 1999) and they were eager to play and experiment with their equipement including guitar, Roland TB-303, various keyboards and softwares, turntables (both had started DJing), a sampler and so on. At this point their sessions were very intensive: They got together at their Kantvik-based studio and both started working on their ideas, such as rhythm patterns, melodies and pre-recorded samples, but still letting the other hear very few previews of the material he was working on. So the live sets of this particular time (eg. Without Hands) became highly surprising yet good-sounding even to the two musicians themselves.

The Kantvik Studios

In 2000 Atmosphere of a Small town was the first Exit song (and the first demo they sent in) to get airplay on the Finnish national radio on a weekly midnight ambient special show very popular among the devotees called Avaruusromua (Space Junk), hosted by Space Commander mr. Jukka Mikkola. As the last song of that particular show it was a beautiful fadeout to the midnight with an alluring melancholic piano loop and whispering wind-like string whooshes. The next time their stuff was played out nationwidely was a year later when Fun for the Masses - probably their finest piece ever made - was heard on Avaruusromua in its full 16-minute length.The latest Exit recordings date to 2002. The duo made an interesting minimalistic piece with a loop, some samples and spare keyboard sounds. As this text is written they are planning of reviving the project and getting back into the studio after a few years' silent period. We'll see what they will come up with next - hopefully in the near future.

The Large, Amsterdam

Both being huge techno and electronic (dance) music fiends, this whole project was in a way an outcome of totally natural development. The hazy days of the beginning of the new millennium were really something that started off a new era in the lives of these two young artists.

To be continued...

T. Arisponge