KESTO (234:48:4) is a brand new quartet of compact discs from PAN SONIC (Mika Vainio and Ilpo Vaisanen) available only as one complete set.

This is an epic work in the true sense of the word.

The title means "strength" or "duration", entirely appropriate in both the size of this work (over four hours of new music) and the scale of the band's adventures since the release of their last album Aaltopiiri in 2001.

Directly after Aaltopiiri's release, uninspired by the traditional rock and roll performance circuit they had so elegantly mastered since their public birth in 1995, PAN SONIC undertook a mammoth round-the-world tour that was organised via an enthusiastic response to two small adverts in The Wire music magazine. The adverts invited promoters, fans or the merely curious to offer the band a range of far flung locations and exotic venues in which to perform. In exchange, the band asked only for the promise of accommodation and a percentage of any profits that the event might generate. They received hundreds of offers, which resulted in a eight-week-long expedition that took them from their base in Barcelona to Singapore, Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, Papeete, Easter Island, Buenos Aires, Tijuana, Mexico City, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, Princeton University, and Reykjavik. In the course of the tour they played in every type of venue, from major concert halls to back street "rumbatini" shacks, gathering inspirational atmospheres from a wide and wild variety of events including a monkeys' tea party, an Easter Island shebeen, late night hot springs and frozen snow baths, audio recordings of the famous stone heads of Easter Island and the lo rider cars of Tijuana, and working with a 40-member Icelandic choir.

They had fully expected to continue on for another four weeks by driving to events in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Turkey, Israel and Greece, but Mika Vainio fell ill through the physical and mental stress of almost constant travel and performances, causing the Eastern Bloc section to be cancelled. The travelogue recommenced in Istanbul and was completed in Athens, but Mika vowed from there on in that touring would consist of no more than four consecutive performances.

After a lengthy period of recovery Mika relocated himself and their studio to Berlin from their first temporary home of Barcelona, where they had moved in 1998 to escape the long Finnish winters in their hometown of Turku, 100 miles west of Helsinki.

The original discussions of ideas for the new recordings were based around Mika's favourite painter Francis Bacon and his use of the triptych (a format Bacon used a number of times in his lifetime). Always pushing the boundaries, PAN SONIC were inspired to go on to record a fourth part.

Those familiar with PAN SONIC's work may detect a correlation between their use of sound and Bacon's use of paint; the KESTO recordings represent a substantial new depth and vitality in the quality of their sound palette that brings a newfound life force and delicate violence into their music.

PAN SONIC have remained true to their original and pioneering use of their special handmade analog tone generators, more old radio set than synthesisers, with the occasional use of digital samplers for the more rhythmic sounds. They still record live to DAT tape in real time with no overdubbing.

The sounds within are complemented by the award winning photography of fellow Finnish artist Anne Hamalainen.