SlowHill are a Finnish instrumental

downtempo Downtempo (or downbeat) is a broad label for electronic music that features an atmospheric sound and slower beats than would typically be found in dance music. Closely related to ambient music but with greater emphasis on rhythm, the style may ...

/ lounge band formed in 2002 by Slow (aka Vellu Maurola) and award-winning

saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpi ...

Tapani Rinne. The band fuses downtempo beats into

easy listening Easy listening (including mood music) is a popular music genre and radio format that was most popular during the 1950s to 1970s. It is related to middle-of-the-road (MOR) music and encompasses instrumental recordings of standards, hit songs, ...

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a majo ...

atmospheres.

History

SlowHill have released four albums via various record labels. Their debut album, ''Finndisc'', was the first

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to ...

album released by the jazz label Blue Note in Finland. It was subsequently released by Blue Note in the UK, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands. The band unearthed and sampled classic jazz records from the vaults of EMI Finland, which owns Blue Note's catalogue. Jazz artists sampled include Heikki Sarmanto, Teuvo Suojärvi, Mike Koskinen, Carita Holmström and

Pekka Pohjola Jussi Pekka Pohjola (13 January 1952 – 27 November 2008) was a Finnish multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer. Best known as a bass player, Pohjola was also a classically trained pianist and violinist. Pohjola rose to fame as the bas ...

. Pohjola's sample, used on the track "Valo", was also used by

DJ Shadow Joshua Paul Davis (born June 29, 1972), better known by his stage name DJ Shadow, is an American DJ, songwriter and record producer. His debut studio album, '' Endtroducing.....'' was released in 1996. Biography Early years (1989–1995) DJ Sh ...

on his track "Midnight in a Perfect World" from ''Endtroducing.....''. The band’s second album, ''Fennika'', was released by Plastinka Records in 2005. It features a track composed for a

Pablo Neruda Ricardo Eliécer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto (12 July 1904 – 23 September 1973), better known by his pen name and, later, legal name Pablo Neruda (; ), was a Chilean poet-diplomat and politician who won the 1971 Nobel Prize in Literature. Nerud ...

poem and samples from Rajaton’s song "Butterfly". The band’s third album, ''Muzak'', was released in June 2010 by

Universal Music Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

Finland. Guest musicians include

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

ist Pekka Kuusisto on electric guitars,

percussionist A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excl ...

Teho Majamäki and

vocalist Singing is the act of creating musical sounds with the voice. A person who sings is called a singer, artist or vocalist (in jazz and/or popular music). Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung with or witho ...

Siiri Nordin. It also marks the appearance of the first

cover song In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song releas ...

by SlowHill: Rauno Lehtinen’s jazz classic "Toiset meistä".

Discography

Albums

* ''Finndisc'' (2002) * ''Fennika'' (2005) * ''Muzak'' (2010) * ''Lento'' (2017)

References

External links

SlowHill's official webpages
{{DEFAULTSORT:Slowhill Finnish electronic music groups Finnish male musicians