SlowHill

SlowHill
SlowHill members Slow (Vellu Maurola) and Tapani Rinne
Background information
Origin	Helsinki, Finland
Genres	jazz, electronic, lounge, downtempo
Years active	2002 - present
Labels	Blue Note Records, Plastinka Records, Universal Music,
Website	www.slowhill.com
Members	Slow, Tapani Rinne

SlowHill are a Finnish instrumental downtempo/lounge band formed in 2002 by Slow (aka Vellu Maurola) and award-winning saxophonist Tapani Rinne. The band fuses downtempo beats into easy listening jazz atmospheres.

History

SlowHill have released three albums via various record labels.

Their first album, Finndisc, was the first ever electronica 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.^[1] The band unearthed and sampled classic jazz records from the vaults of EMI Finland, which owns Blue Note's catalogue.^[2] Jazz artists sampled include Heikki Sarmanto, Teuvo Suojärvi, Mike Koskinen, Carita Holmström and Pekka Pohjola.^[3] Pohjola's sample, used on the track "Valo", was also used by DJ Shadow on his track "Midnight" from A Perfect World.^[4]

The band’s second album, Fennika, was released by Plastinka Records in 2005. It features a track composed for a Pablo Neruda poem^[5] and samples from Rajaton’s song "Butterfly".^[6]

The band’s third album, Muzak, was released in June 2010 by Universal Music Finland. Guest musicians include violinist Pekka Kuusisto on electric guitars,^[7] percussionist Teho Majamäki and vocalist Siiri Nordin. It also marks the appearance of the first cover song by SlowHill: Rauno Lehtinen’s jazz classic "Toiset meistä".^[8]

Discography

Albums

• Finndisc (2002)
• Fennika (2005)
• Muzak (2010)

References

External links

• SlowHill's official webpages