»Landscapes Of Late« by Northbound

We’re proud to present the debut release on Monotonik from Northbound, a band consisting of Mikko Roisko and Olli Jäderholm, self-described as “two guys from southern Finland, soon to reach their mid-twenties” - and ‘Landscapes Of Late’ is gorgeous live instrument-filled nu-chill groove.

We ran into Northbound through their oblique connections with the TPOLM demo-scene crew and IRC channel, and they explain of their project: “We have both been making music for about 4 years now, and collaborated almost from the very beginning. “Landscapes Of Late” is the first Northbound release, and also the first release for either of us. That’s beacause we didn’t want to release anything until we were even remotely satisfied with our sound. We’re both pretty much self-educated musicians, excluding Mikko’s few guitar&keyboard lessons as a kid.

They continue: “The EP was made in our livingroom studio, using cheap-ass guitars & bass & amplifiers & microphones, some other instruments and yes, computers. Our aim is to build songs around our own melodic & rhythmic ideas, and use samples to spice it all up. (in other words, we only tend to sample instruments that we have no idea how to play, or can’t possibly afford.)”

The results seem to have turned out just fine to us, with debut track ‘Forward’ starting as they mean to go on, all live groove and instrumental verve - a perfect blend of the electronic and acoustic jam. ‘Little Thieves’ is another highlight, almost cranking up the Orbital or John Barry connections for a looping piece of transcendental whimsy. The 6-track EP is rounded out by ‘Funny Stones’, which is all melodica and smarts, wrapping up one of the best Monotonik releases in a good while.