KITA (Fin): Our Music Is Something to Practice Your Attention Span On

We’ll admit, it’s rare to discover new music that leaves us completely speechless. But it happens, and the Finnish band KITA has been just that case from the very start. After their first releases, we’re thrilled to once again be the label hosting the release of their second album “Ikuinen,” coming in November 2026. To mark the release of the first single “Voyager III” on August 21, Jonne Hirvonen of KITA shared his thoughts and some interesting insights with us.

Hi Jonne, can you please introduce yourself and KITA to our readers.

Hi, I’m Jonne, I play guitar, scream and do weird noises with synthesizers in KITA, a psychedelic doom/sludge band we put together with my long-time friends, Topi on bass, Aatu on drums and Antti on lead guitar. We’re from Finland, from the darkest corner of Europe, where you still can see the stars on winter nights. We live couple of hours from each other, so we don’t see each other everyday, but when we do, it’s always a joy and very fruitful meetings. We miss each other while we are away, and there’s a really special energy in the air when we get to play together. I love these guys, we are a tribe.

So, your new single is out! ”Voyager III” is described as a “nine-and-a-half-minute journey through space without the comfort of a space suit”. What does that image of anguish mean to you, and how did you translate it musically?

It is a metaphor of mankind facing the laws of physics, which know no mercy. We either adapt or die. We’re still hopeful that remembering the beauty and uniqueness of life, we could become wiser and avoid our own destruction. Or at least warn other civilizations to not make same mistakes we did.

Musically we came up with this massive song with hypnotic but very chaotic rhythm. We spent significant amount of time trying to find where the beat one is. 🙂 The rhythm resembles the feeling of not having ground underneath, being thrown around in zero gravity. Typical to us it’s a long progressive song with multiple different feelings, but all sections are derived from the same source as the core idea, whether it’s the India-flavoured snake charming of the intro, or brutal sludge in the verse, it is actually same riff. Ok, there’s a little U-turn in the c-part, but hold on, it has something familiar coming again in the outro.

 Our music is an antidote for the current easy-digest-throwaway-tiktok-culture. Something to practice attention span. Worth mentioning is that we all four guys played the track together in the studio as a long uninterrupted take. That’s the method used on all our recordings. Recording like that all day, take after take, on the verge of collective psychosis, all of sudden it all just clicks and we know that “this is the take!”

You described the song like “an epitaph for humanity… the last words written on a golden plate.” How come you choose the gold plate as your main symbolic anchor? 

It refers to the Golden Record, which was sent to the space with Voyager 2 space probe in the seventies. The idea came from pondering what kind of message we would write today for the possible alien lifeforms about the life on earth. “We killed it. We’re sorry. Don’t be as stupid as we were. Know that it was beautiful.” came to mind.

Humanity is intelligent, humanity is stupid, doomed and blessed, beautiful and ugly, all in the same time. What are the main characteristics you are trying to paint with “Voyager III”?

We are not different from any other species on this earth. We’re all connected and depending on each other. The only thing that sets us apart from the rest of the biosphere is our capability to wonder, our self-consciousness and our use of technology. It has given us such power that we should really be careful how we’re using it. We are like Icarus, too capable for our own good.

Still I refuse to be all doom & gloom, I think it’s irresponsible. In the chorus, the lyrics translate: “Know this: There was beauty, music, science, art, unconditional love, children’s laughter”.

Why title it “Voyager III” specifically, is there a direct link to the real Voyager space endevours? 

Yes, I’ve been kinda space nerd since childhood, and our music in general is very inspired by astronomy, among many other things. I also love music and films of the same period. I’ve been influenced by a lot of prog, space rock, psychedelia and sci-fi of the sixties and seventies. Back then a lot of cool things were invented, and bands were not afraid to do experimental stuff.

You like to mix some school rock influences and warm psychedelia with modernistic and cold doom and sludge. What’s the recipe for a nice compromise between those influences?

I don’t think “a nice compromise” describes our music in any way, the point is not to mix influences to make bland middleground of any sort, but to create extreme drama. You can’t have dramaturgy without dynamics, without contrast. Our music has the opposites, ups & downs, warmth & cold, soft & hard, density & space, simply out of the need to create interesting journey. Different influences bleed through in those different moods, but they’re never anything consciously calculated. They come with intuition when following the idea, the original glimpse of inspiration, which I always try to actualise best I can when writing music. When I get the idea of a song, it feels like digging it up like an archaeologist. It already exists in a perfect realm of ideas, I just have to make it reality, and it always gets colored by the process itself.

How do your soundscapes on this single differ from what fans heard on “Ocean of Acid” or “Tyhjiö”?

I think overall “Ikuinen” album is more guitar driven and more outward bursting explosion of energy opposed to the imploding weight of “Tyhjiö”, but “Voyager III” differs from that direction a little bit by giving a huge role to a Moog synthesizer. Where as on “Tyhjiö” the synthesizer was used mainly on weighty drones and weird sound effects, this time the synth has more role on melodic lines and riffs. All in all there is the same craziness, just taken further.

As a four-piece, how do you divide the work of building such dense, layered psychedelic textures live versus in the studio?

For me it requires some multitasking, as I’m singing, playing guitar AND synthesizer with my hands and feet. It’s not easy, but with practise it becomes a second nature. It helps a lot that the band is tight, I never have to worry if the other guys are there or not, I can always count on them. Aatu has a pad for some one shot samples here and there, but otherwise we don’t use backing tracks or click when we play live. We like to have the freedom and “heat of a moment”, room to improvise, even if it means we have to arrange some songs little different. Antti uses some pedals to make psychedelic effects on guitar. Topi’s bass sound has also a huge role in our band, and his history of playing together with Aatu for over a decade makes KITA sound like it does. It is very difficult for us to practise if even one of us is missing, since we all have such crucial role in the band.

“Ikuinen” means “eternal” in Finnish, if I’m not wrong. What that means to you, besides it’s the title of your upcoming album?

First it was a title of the last song on the album, which contemplates on eternity and if anything really is eternal. It began with a metaphor of two people facing each other, being mirrors to each other. If a mirror looks into mirror, does it see eternity? If we strip away all that is temporary, are we left with eternal? I think nothing is permanent, but the circulation of energy is eternal.

It became an album title because we thought it was funny to say sentences like “Eternal doesn’t fit on one vinyl disc”, “Eternity lasts 53 minutes” or “When is Eternal ready?”. It also sounds grandiose enough. We wanted to make something Eternal, see? 🙂

We also thought for “Peilimaa” as a title, which is another song on the record. It means “Mirrorland” in English, but without the context of a song it sounded silly. The song itself is the most disgusting piece we could ever write, but separated it was too light for this record. We also considered “Pertunmaa” which is a place in Finland. None of us has been there.

What do you most want listeners to feel by the time the nine-and-a-half minutes of “Voyager III” are over?

Overwhelm of emotions. Sadness. Awe. Same kind of chills that we get from the song & video.