Jori Hulkkonen is from Kemi. That is very, very far from anywhere. And 712 km from Helsinki. Somehow he managed to pick up the house music bug over there, far, far away from everywhere, and went on to have one of the longest and most varied international careers of any recent Finnish musician, as a DJ and producer.
In the early 90s Jori collaborated on a label project Lumi in Finland and in 1996 he signed on with French electronic music powerhouse F Communications. Solo albums like When No One Is Watching We Are Invisible, Errare Machinale Est and especially Dualizm have received rave reviews. The last one is also notable for vocal contributions by John Foxx of Ultravox fame, as well as Jerry Valuri. The Hulkkonen/Valuri connection worked out so well, they started a new band for it. It’s called Processory. Jori’s most recent album under his given name is Man From Earth (Turbo) in 2009.
Jori’s biggest hit so far has been a version of Canadian heartthrob Corey Hart’s 1980s monster hit Sunglasses at Night, which he created together with likewise Canadian producer Tiga. Recently Jori Hulkkonen collaborated with Chris Lowe of Pet Shop Boys. Hulkkonen, Lowe and pioneering house DJ Alex Nieminen produced a cover version of New Order’s classic track Subculture. The song actually features Chris Lowe on vocals, so it’s a rare treat indeed.
Jori Hulkkonen the “hired gun” producer is no slouch, either. In addition to producing tracks with Tiga, he has produced and mixed albums for Villa Nah (Keys of Life), Night Satan (Solina) and Sister Flo (Fullsteam). Jori has remixed some pretty heavy hitters, to good effect: José Gonzáles, Goldfrapp, Robyn, Aril Brikha, Lydia Lunch, Chromeo, Five Corners Quintet, Cirque Du Soleil, 22 Pistepirkko, Cabaret Voltaire, Bomfunk MC’s, just to name a few. As you can tell, he doesn’t really suffer from any genre-based limitations…
Jori’s wealth of aliases include dRUMMAN, Zyntherius, Eternal Boyman, Bobby Forrester and Jii Hoo, among others. He is also the conductor and creative director of the world’s first and only symphony orchestra that uses exclusively vintage Roland gear: Acid Symphony Orchestra (www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r5tYpQqb8I&NR=1). Jori is a very popular DJ all over the world, particularly in Central Europe, and used to host an electronic music show on Finnish national radio.
- First 12” released in 1993 and dozens since then for hottest labels in the world: Hybrid, Trainspotter’s Nightmare, etc.
- 10 albums for F communications and Turbo.
- Globe-trotting DJ since the 90s, played hundreds of club and festivals from Australia to Zürich and all points in between.
- Most recent 12”: Subculture by Stop Modernists, featuring Chris Lowe comes out on June 14th on Keys of Life Records (soundcloud.com/sahko/stop-modernists-subculture).
- Most recent album: Processory‘s second album on Sugarcane Recordings: Change Is Gradual, and a video for single Take Me To Your Leader (http://vimeo.com/23795857 ).
- Website: www.jorihulkkonen.com
- Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/jori-hulkkonen
