Niko Skorpio is a transdisciplinary artist based in Finland. He works with images, sound and miscellaneous lost & found material. His works have been shown in galleries and events worldwide. His background in experimental underground music and graphic design reaches back to the 1990s.
Niko Skorpio started his music activities in 1990 with the genre-defining doom metal band Thergothon. Since then he’s explored various genres and styles with several different bands and projects. His debut solo LP Grey Bloom was released in August 1998 on Some Place Else, the label he founded the year before. Since then he has released material on various record labels worldwide, but Some Place Else remained his primary output channel up to its termination in the end of 2013.
In 2014 Niko Skorpio founded the PARAFERAL creative research facility which, among other activities, maintains the Some Place Else archive.
Sounds Like?
”(…) early-industrial sounding album that can be compared to the likes of Coil, Throbbing Gristle, and Psychic TV. The entire album is chalk full of precise experimentation and the combination of unique styles of music. You can find a mixture of everything from extreme industrial to trip hop to dark ambient to lo-fi techno. (…)highly complex and very well written. While there is a bit of upbeat industrial to fuel your hatred, there is also an incredible amount of desolate dark ambient gaps and tortured voices coming through the white noise. This album is almost ritualistic in its’ nightmarish nature. Niko is obviously one of the more successful musicians in the industrial scene at creating this foreboding atmosphere. While anyone can create noise, he has a way of making it simply build to a point of anxiety. (…) One thing I am sure of: Niko Skorpio is beyond talented, and only someone with an extremely demented mindset could come up with music this foreboding and mentally destructive.” (Heathen Harvest on Escape from Heaven)
”Skorpio doesn’t play ‘just’ noise, there are also moments in which things are quiet and introspective (…) Skorpio has made a richly varied album of various moods and styles that makes however a solid and unified impression. A great album of turning an ‘old’ style into something ‘new’ and with an own signature.” (Vital Weekly on Escape from Heaven)
”If you miss “Rabies”-era Skinny Puppy with a touch of Ministry and other industrial music from around the same time, you should definitely check this out. The more dark-ambient pieces he has up to sample are quite good, too.” (Lupatarkastaja on Escape from Heaven)
“An unrecognizable voice on top of digital distorted sound bits, creating creepy soundscapes and ominous atmospheres. The last couple of tracks can even be considered feeback noise, reminding of artists such as The Haters or noise without any sign of structure. This is more the territory of one of the other projects called Reptiljan.” (Phosphor Magazine on Live in Placard #7)
“Strangely fucked up computer cum techno music in four different directions – that makes a nice EP.” (Vital Weekly on Silence is King)
“Niko Skopio, hiding behind the Some Place Else label’s mask, brings forth twisted wallpaper patterning on his new four track mini. Skorpio’s musical menu has contained more alternative auditory meals than many will even taste in their whole lives; stylistically called electro madness, sick-hop, power ambient, illbient and whatnot.” (Inferno on Stainway to Heaven)
“All tracks are, in spite of their strangeness and experimental nature, carried out very well both when it comes to their concepts and sound techniques. (…) The chaotic nature of this album is confusing in the beginning, but once you get used to the style, the album proves to be very enjoyable and downright genious.” (Kuolleen Musiikin Yhdistys on Stainway to Heaven)
”Niko’s overall approach reminds me of electro pioneer Frank Tovey (Fad Gadget) in the way he uses his gear for maximum effort without getting lost in technical questions. His sampling attitude, especially on the opening track “Teeth Of Eris,” brings Broad Broadcasting Bureau in mind and the more or less analog sounding drones on “Limbo In C Major” and the nearly 12 minute “Flooding Aura” the likes of Steve Roach.” (The Brainwashed Brain on ChAmber MooSick)
”Delta Amoeba has the sonic experimentation and aesthetic of an underground noise album but somehow channels recent “electronica” without compromise. Imagine if trip-hop star Tricky gave up the reefer, moved to Finland, and got depressed and lost his mind… and you’ll be on the right path.” (Black Box Radio on Delta Amoeba)
” In all: file definitely under industrial, but one with a sense of humour, with here and there an odd pun to the subject ‘industrial’.” (Vital Weekly on Grey Bloom)