I’ve updated this page to contain an interview done by My Rave’s Lizsen in September 2026. The original interview is available in Finnish here: https://lizsen.blogspot.com/2026/09/haastattelussa-tst-project.html and I’ve translated it to English below.
For starters, present yourself! How did you end up in the world of electronic music? Where are you based nowadays?
I am a long-time electronic music producer and DJ approaching the magic 50 years age from Tampere, Finland. My career in music has lasted for about 35 years now and I first fell in love with the electronic sound back in the days in Lahti where my friend played me Prodigy’s Experience album from a C-cassette. The sound was weird, even a little bit crazy, but it clicked for me immediately and I wanted to hear more. A bit later I ended up playing some music on a party by an accident and heard skillful mixing of DJs in local youth clubs which finally got me into DJing. Computers had already been part of my youth life, but with new interest in music I also started my first experiments doing my own sound with Commodore Amiga.
How was your alias Toscasound born?
When I moved to Tampere for my studies, my music producing was somewhat occasional and I was searching my “own genre” for some time. I had been doing trance vibed music with my army friend for some time but melodies and chords were not my thing and in co-operation I concentrated mostly on drums, effects and song structures. I felt that I didn’t have the skills to write complex melodies and chord progressions that would have required at least a basic level understanding of music theory. I was also still quite in love with strong basslines and breakbeat, so I found myself going into that direction with my own sound and Toscasound was born. First, the name was only Tosca (formed from a combination of my first and second name) but there was already an artist by that name in the electronic music field so I quite quickly changed the name to Toscasound.
Tell me something about TST Project!
TST Project was born when my breakbeat-styled music with Toscasound started to evolve and get new elements. Some of the tracks were really melodic and trance vibes were clearly present whereas the sound in others was quite breakbeat / drum&bass / rave styled, and the two different worlds did not seem to form a coherent sound anymore. I ended up creating a new alias for the trance material and Toscasound was to continue purely as a breakbeat alias. TST in fact is just an acronym of the words Toscasound Trance.
Slowly my sound evolved, my enthusiasm grew and I decided to start publishing my music to Spotify and other music services. At some point I had enough courage to send my music to DJ Orion in YleX radio and after few tries I managed to get it played on the national radio. This experience gave me even more courage and enthusiasm and in ten years of TST Project’s existence I’ve published four full albums and numerous EPs and single tracks. The the most well-known and overwhelmingly most played track on my catalogue is Forecast which samples (with permission) Yle’s sea area weather forecast reader Petri Rinne. The current sound of the TST Project covers quite widely all subgenres of trance and “Orkidea sound” which is nowadays probably more labeled as progressive house than trance but I also like to bring some breakbeat and acid vibes to my sound.
What kind of music have you produced during the years?
I would like to say that at some point of my career, pretty much all kinds of music that electronic music term covers. As well as breakbeat and and trance that I nowadays do, I’ve had some techno phases, some harder and faster sound in the 90s and at times I’ve also done some ambient / chill-out, drum&bass and many more. Modern harder genres like hardstyle I have not yet gone into, though.
The last track that I published with TST Project is called Cyberspace. It’s part of the still under construction album that celebrates the golden age of trance on both sides of the year 2000. I’m hoping to finalise and publish the album by the end of the year.
What has been the best DJ gig of your career?
My career is so long that I have probably forgotten some great gigs but since I’ve had a long break from doing any gigs before this year, I will say a last summer’s gig in private party called Hideaway Rave in Kontiolahti. An exceptional setting in the heart of the nature, great audience and I got to play two sets of just the music that has been the most important for me during my career.
What is your favorite genre and why?
Right now it’s definitely trance with all of it’s subgenres. I am a kind of “old school” electronic music person that I have not completely adopted all new terminology that seem to appear all the time, so quite many of the modern genre terms still fit under the trance umbrella for me. Trance is combination of many things I love in music: atmosphere, certain melancholy, beautiful melodies and other other hand energy, euphoria and danceability.
If you could co-operate with any artist, who would it be?
I must say Orkidea. It might sound a bit boring to say a Finnish artist if I could work with anyone in the world but I must say that out of all artists, Orkidea has had the biggest influence on my own production and I include Orkidea’s music or remixes in pretty much every trance influenced DJ set. I might be a bit biased but for me Orkidea represents a certain type of trance sound at it’s purest and best form and no one else in the world can not match that.
What is the best thing in Finnish electronic music scene?
The best thing is definitely the certain togetherness. Even with a lot of artists and DJs belonging to the world’s top performers, I have not noticed any kind of arrogance or lifting yourself above others. I’m sure there are some exceptions but I feel the artists, DJs and club audiences are all part of one big family who just want to enjoy music regardless of whether they are the creators, playing music or on the dancefloor enjoying the it.
What YouTube video you’d like to share with with the readers?
This time I need to be a bit biased and share my own live show video from Acid Afterwork happening in Bar Kotelo, Tampere. It was my first public live / producer’s set with completely my own material under TST Project alias so it has a special place in my heart:
Define the term “techno”.
I feel privileged that I’ve lived through the transformation of the term techno and changes of the meaning during four decades. Back in time when I fell in love with electronic music, for many people techno meant the whole electronic music genre starting from 2 Unlimited. At some point, the mainstream eurodance music was separated but most of the underground sound was still called techno. It was only quite much later when techno clearly separated as it’s own genre that did not include house, trance and breakbeat / drum&bass but was that certain detroit, berlin, minimal and acid 4/4 beat simple and even monotonic sound. This is the definition I still go with even if the flood of new terminology has again expanded the term techno to be used in genres that for me do not represent techno as I personally experience it.
Many thanks for Lizsen for the interview!