NY, HEL, BARCA

Finnish composer and multi-instrumentalist Jimi Tenor has joined
forces with Bureau B to release "NY, Hel, Barca" - a retrospective
compilation spanning the years 1994 - 2001. The double LP features
early works and selected tracks from his first six albums, long since
deleted. Having disbanded Jimi Tenor And His Shamans, the artist
embarked on a solo career in the early 1990s, recording his debut
work "S hk mies" on rudimentary equipment in a small New York
apartment. The album was released in 1994 on the Finnish imprint
S hk , who also issued Tenor's sophomore work "Europa" a year
later, expanding on the ideas articulated on the first disc.
In spite of the experimental nature and free form of these early
recordings, Tenor's instinctive grasp of pop appeal, his spontaneity
and whimsical sense of humour are clearly in evidence.
On the back of a game-changing performance at the Love Parade in
Berlin, Jimi Tenor scored his first hit with "Take Me Baby", entering the
charts and signing a deal with the seminal electronic label Warp
Records. The three Warp albums - "Intervision" (1997), "Organism"
(1999) and "Out Of Nowhere" (2000) - were touchstones in the
electronic club music scene of the period. Effortlessly blending jazz,
synthesizer sounds, Afrobeats and drum machine dubs, Jimi Tenor
created a distinctive sound which he himself rewired and renewed. Not
that his compositions were overly academic, on the contrary - they
often resembled free-flowing, sporadic sketches, with an infectiously
irrepressible touch of the absurd.
The 20 tracks on "NY, Hel, Barca" document key stages of Jimi
Tenor's remarkable creative path, underlining the prolific and varied
nature of his artistic output. Then as now, he shines like a satellite
hovering over the European pop landscape.