The first instantly addictive dose of Krakatau was delivered in 1988 in the form of Ritual. For his debut as a leader Björkenheim had melded Vesala's wise words with his own knowledge of different ethnic rhythms and harmonic structures. The performing line-up consisted of two drummers: Michel Lambert and Heikki Lehto, bassist Sampo Lassila and two reed specialists: Jorma Tapio and Tapani Rinne. Both blowers come originally from under Vesala's wing, but have since gone on to front their own established groups. Stave Lake, a future Krakatau producer, fell immediately in love with Ritual and in his Wire magazine review compared Björkenheim 's compositions to those of Ayler and Coleman.

His next mainline shot came in 1990, when Krakatau unleashed the vicious gnarling beast that is their second offering Alive. For this CD Raoul Ttrimmed the group to a trio of himself, Lassila and Lambert and took a tape recorder to a gig with astounding results. Still to this day Björkenheim rates Alive as the one most representative documents of his own recorded musicianship. In 1990 Krakatau appeared at the Helsinki Sea Jazz Festival augmented by master drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson.

Two years after Alive, Krakatau signed a contract with ECM and the first outcome of this deal was Volition in 1 992. Once again the line-up had gone through a total change. This time the drummer was Affe Forsman (of Sielun Veliet), the bass player Uffe Krokfors (among others of Sound & Fury) and the sax giant Jone Takambki.

The third recorded Krakatau required only a minor tune-up to bring the group to its fullest bloom. This was achieved when the drums were taken over by Ippe Kätkä, a true pioneer of Finnish jazz and rock. In 1993 Krakatau took a giant leap towards a more dynamically challenging expression. The group's overall sound got more sophisticated but none of its brute force was sacrificed. After a successful foray into Austrian, Swiss and German soil, Krakatau went into the studio for three days and came out with Matinale, one of the cornerstones of modern Finnish jazz.

Released in 1994, Matinale got rave reviews all over. Modern Drummer magazine's Hal Howland had this to say about the music: "Like their nation's musical hero Jean Sibeiius, the members of Krakatau convey at once the vast icy ringing North and the warm woody intimacy of folk art." Soon after the release of Matinale Raoul decided to add more firepower to the percussion department and brought in Toppo lsopuro, with whom he had already made music together in Arbuusi. lppe on the other hand had contacts to a Senegalese mbalax-group, and therefore Krakatau's audiences in the latter part of 1 994 were treated to novel and totally unheard of manic-triballistic bursts of visceral energy.

The continent was also slowly yet surely beginning to open up to Krakatau's muscular barrage and in 1995 the band went back to tour Austria, Germany and Italy. In 1996 the onslaught was aimed at Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden. In Sweden one of the biggest dailies, Dagens Nyheter, praised Krakatau in a long review. Johannes Cornell was astounded that the neighboring Finns had managed to keep such a potent group under wraps for so long.

Due to other time-consuming projects, Raoul Björkenheim put Krakatau into hibernation in the winter of 1997.

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