Mika Vainio

Born in Helsinki in 1963 and raised in Turku, he was a Finnish electronic musician who co-founded Pan Sonic in Turku in 1993 with Ilpo Väisänen, a duo whose minimal synthesizer work, built around distortion, sub-bass frequencies, and extreme dynamic range, became highly influential in European electronic music. He also co-founded the label Sähkö Recordings and released solo work under the aliases Ø, Kentolevi, and Philus, on labels including Touch, Raster-Noton, and Editions Mego. His collaborators included Alan Vega, Alva Noto, Björk, and Stephen O'Malley. He died in April 2017 at the age of 53.