Jimi Tenor - NY, Hel, Barca: recordings 1994-2001 (2xLP)

LP version. 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 release 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 Sähkömies on rudimentary equipment in a small New York apartment. The album was released in 1994 on the Finnish imprint Sähkö, 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 humor 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, Afrobeat, 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. "Backbone Of The Night" features Riga Symphony Orchestra.