Projects: Panu M Savolainen (ex. DeadZone and DeadZone Music), Half-Normalized, LAkeuZ, Connection: Deviant, Kohina
I was born in Syri, Lestijärvi. Syri is small village surrounded by fields and forests. It’s been one of the biggest influences of the past music. I have always been doing own music since I was teen. Also sound programming has been important part of the music and inspiration.
Musical history starts from the year 1992 with Amiga 500, 8-bit sampler and MIDI-keyboard. Pro Tracker sequencer you had about a bit over 400k memory and four channels to work with. It was very challenging but also very educational. There was some success in 4-track competitions, but goal was to make tracks for Amiga multimedia-productions. In the 80’s I got my first keyboard, so playing keys started very early age. It was time to learn basic notes and chords.
During 1991 – 1996 I made some DJ gigs and was more interested of HC, gabber, everything fast. Other hand I listened much house, techno, ambient and lot’s of AC/DC, Anthrax, Sepultura, Metallica, Faith No More, Dire Straits – many kinds of music. In those times I started to buy synths, drummachines and samplers and to learn, how to make own sounds and soundscapes. Since -94 I have been listening lot’s of progressive rock & metal and fusion.
Around -95/-96 I got Amiga 1200 with turbo, HD and better quality sampler. Tracker was still 8-bit but you could sample with better quality. I made sound with synths and sampled them. I sampled Korg Wavestation EX, Yamaha CS1x, Roland D5, Roland XP-10 and Roland TR-707. Mixer was Fostex 4-track and also made some recording to casette.
In the end of the 90’s studio was moving from Amiga to PC. Now there was some analog (Roland Juno-106, Jupiter-6, Waldorf Pulse) mixed with digital synths (Yamaha AN1x, Roland JV-1080, Quasimidi Rave-O-Lution 309, Waldorf Microwave XT). PC with more power and memory made 16-bit sampling possible. Fostex was now retired and replaced by Roland M160 -mixer, which was quite noisy, but very warm sounding. Album surrounded and bits of Mindfields was made with this setup.
Early time at Mp3.com was pretty successful and after it was closed I moved tracks to download.com. In short time, tracks were downloaded over 400 000 times. I started to get mails mostly from USA, since d’n’b scene was becoming popular in the millenium. In those days, I was making athmospheric d’n’b and managed top10 in the d’n’b charts and top3 in the atmorpheric d’n’b charts at download.com. Those times top names were Pendulum and Roni Size to name few. Sadly the site closed.
During the years 2003 – 2016 tracks was used in many video-productions. DeadZone or DeadZone Music, the main project, is now named Panu M Savolainen and it’s waiting for new and fresh inspiration. During the album Silently in 2007, I finally managed to make few ambient-tracks and got them played in favourite radio-program “Space Junk” (Avaruusromua). Later I finally managed to make more ambient-type music with combination of analog and digital synths. Many of them has been played in “Space Junk”.
During these years, I have learned to play a bit guitar, bass and drums. Combined these with synths, project Half-Normalized was born in 2005/2006. I have made two albums and it’s been challenging and really joy to play the all instruments.
In 2011 new project called Connection: Deviant was born. Now with totally different style: EBM/industrial. Markus Tavasti (from ZombieVomit and Incarnate) does great lyrics and vocals. We are slowly doing new material. Looking forward to this.
AmbientWorx was finished in 2016 and had mostly ambient tracks.
In the early of 2017 LAkeuZ was started. Now with legendary electronic music and synthesizer-guru Ashen Simian. It was totally virtual project. Music is combination of ambient, techno and electro made with large collection of synths and acoustic instruments. I’m really honored to work with Ashen Simian, since his project “Nemesis” has been for me one of the best electronic bands out there. Album called Oumuamua was born in 2019 and the CD is available from Bandcamp.
In 2020 Kohina released debut album. I also finished two albums Contorted and Syri.
In 2021 album Flow was released.
In 2022 album Uknown Orbits was released.
Panu M Savolainen – DeadZoneMusic.Com