Circle

Finland's Circle first took shape in the early 1990s, its name reflecting an elliptical stance toward experimental rock. The group folded ambient passages, jazz inflections, psychedelia, Krautrock pulses, heavy metal weight, new wave edges, progressive structures, and post-rock sprawl into a single fluid identity, setting its output apart from the electronics-driven instrumental ensembles of Loop, Surgery, Trans-Am, and Tortoise even while sharing certain textural habits. Across three decades the sound has stayed defiantly singular. Since the 1994 debut Meronia the collective has issued dozens of EPs, studio albums, and live documents, reaching a thirty-second studio statement with the 2017 release Terminal, and has joined forces with kindred spirits such as Sunburned Hand of the Man on 2007's The Blaze Game and Richard Dawson on 2021's Henki.

The project began in 1991 in the western coastal town of Piri when bassist and vocalist Jussi Lehtisalo assembled the first lineup; he remains the only member present throughout the group's history. Initial recordings emphasized dense Krautrock atmospheres and vocals delivered entirely in an invented tongue. Following the 2002 album Sunrise the ensemble stabilized around Lehtisalo, keyboardist and vocalist Mika Rättö, drummer Tomi Leppänen, and guitarist Janne Westerlund, steering the music toward a more pronounced progressive metal direction.

Although individual pieces sometimes shift from extended textural explorations into outright prog and metal intensity, the strongest work maintains an unpredictable equilibrium between those poles. Beyond the fifty-plus Circle releases the musicians have launched several satellite outfits, among them Pharaoh Overlord, Rättö ja Lehtisalo, Steel Mammoth, and Doktor Kettu. Extended partnerships have yielded further highlights, notably the largely spontaneous sessions that became The Blaze Game in 2007 with Sunburned Hand of Man and the plant-inspired Henki, recorded in 2021 with English art-folk provocateur Richard Dawson.