Welcome to our experimental music lab!
We are Elliot’s Crazy Compass: Joakim, Henrikki, Pontus and Sam. You might know us from Eternal Erection, a band we put together back in 1994.
ECC’s music emerges from free improvisation with a strong visual sense. In its own way it’s soundtrack music, which is why collaborating with visual artists feels natural. The covers of the Snapshot Gallery EP and the Bubbles album, as well as the Horizon video, were made by visual artist Mira Caselius. The Pop Snap Crackle feat. Michael Monroe video was made by the media artist Liisa Vääriskoski, previously also known as Munalissu. We don’t want to restrict our musical expression to any particular genre. That’s why we let the Compass spin freely and point in surprising directions. Playfulness guarantees us the freedom to create.
The Crazy Compass Gallery on the band’s Instagram account takes the collaboration with artists and designers to new dimensions: the gallery features regularly changing exhibitions that combine ECC’s improvised music and the moving image. These artists use a variety of media in their works. You can check out these works in the Crazy Compass Gallery here.
The naming of Elliot’s Crazy Compass.
Every possible and impossible word combination has been used somewhere for a band or an album title. We struggled to find a name for our new Project X. We even sank so low that we resorted to band image generators. We were close to giving up when one of the name generators spat out “Elliot’s Crazy Compass”. It started with the letter E, like so many things that are important to us from before: our Eternal Erection band and our Eat this Music production company, the E-studio and the E entrance to our training room Helsinki’s Cable Factory. Elliot is also the name of our bassist’s son. Anyone who knows us knows that Crazy fits. The Compass was invented two millennia ago to not get lost, which is useful when exploring the mental landscapes of music-making. So, now we can navigate toward unfamiliar waters and new musical adventures.
“If it feels good, it is good.”
Most of our songs are based initially on free improvisation. We’ve all been playing music together for ages, so a shared subconscious has evolved that guides our playing. Different musical ideas, sounds and styles are an essential part of our process. We record these moments and find ideas and grooves that we later work into finished songs. Even the lyrics’ themes often emerge from the original improvisation because our singer Sam has a fantastic ability to find the words that fit the mood of the improvisation. Playing music together is a conversation and a kind of playtime where anything and everything is allowed. So, we experiment and mix different ingredients, not limiting possible directions based on music styles. Indeed, for ECC, all music that feels good is good.
Image: Liisa Vääriskoski
Welcome to our experimental music lab!
We are Elliot’s Crazy Compass: Joakim, Henrikki, Pontus and Sam. You might know us from Eternal Erection, a band we put together back in 1994. ECC’s music emerges from free improvisation with a strong visual sense. In it’s own way it’s soundtrack music, and we aim to collaborate with visual artists. We don’t want to restrict our musical expression to any particular genre. That’s why we let the Compass spin freely and point in surprising directions. Playfulness guarantees us the freedom to create.
The naming of Elliot’s Crazy Compass.
Every possible and impossible word combination has been used somewhere for a band or an album title. We struggled to find a name for our new Project X. We even sank so low that we resorted to band image generators. We were close to giving up when one of the name generators spat out “Elliot’s Crazy Compass”. It started with the letter E, like so many things that are important to us from before: our Eternal Erection band and our Eat this Music production company, the E-studio and the E entrance to our training room Helsinki’s Cable Factory. Elliot is also the name of our bassist’s son. Anyone who knows us knows that Crazy fits. The Compass was invented two millennia ago to not get lost, which is useful when exploring the mental landscapes of music-making. So, now we can navigate toward unfamiliar waters and new musical adventures.
“If it feels good, it is good.”
Most of our songs are based initially on free improvisation. We’ve all been playing music together for ages, so a shared subconscious has evolved that guides our playing. Different musical ideas, sounds and styles are an essential part of our process. We record these moments and find ideas and grooves that we later work into finished songs. Even the lyrics’ themes often emerge from the original improvisation because our singer Sam has a fantastic ability to find the words that fit the mood of the improvisation. Playing music together is a conversation and a kind of playtime where anything and everything is allowed. So, we experiment and mix different ingredients, not limiting possible directions based on music styles. Indeed, for ECC, all music that feels good is good.