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Acclaimed Nordic indie folk duo Tuomo & Markus have shared their powerful new single, “We’re Not Buying It,” available now via Schoolkids Records/Grandpop Records at all DSPs and streaming services.
LISTEN TO “WE’RE NOT BUYING IT”
WATCH “WE’RE NOT BUYING IT” LIVE PERFORMANCE VIDEO
“’We’re Not Buying It’ pays musical tribute to the soulful protest songs of the late 60s and early 70s,” say Tuomo & Markus. “We love the way artists like Curtis Mayfield, Allen Toussaint and Staple Singers would write hit singles with heavy social subject matter. The lyrics for ‘We’re Not Buying It’ were originally inspired by the ’Occupy’ movement, but can be applied to any situation, where a majority of the people feels they’ve been left behind, ignored or lied to by those in power. Like in the case of the Black Lives Matter movement, abortion rights activism or action on climate change.”
Fueled by funky licks from legendary guitarist Marc Ribot (Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Robert Plant & Alison Krauss), the woozily groove-laden “We’re Not Buying It” heralds the upcoming release of Tuomo & Markus’s long-awaited new album, Game Changing, arriving everywhere on Friday, October 14. Pre-orders are available now.
PRE-ORDER GAME CHANGING
Produced by Tuomo & Markus – a.k.a. Finnish soul/jazz singer/pianist Tuomo Prättälä and singer-songwriter Markus Nordenstreng (of Helsinki-based roots rock band The Latebirds) – in their native Finland and studios across the US, Game Changing also includes such captivating new songs as “Highest Mountain” and “Wishful Information,” both available now at all DSPs and streaming services. “Highest Mountain” is joined by an official performance video which sees Tuomo & Markus joined by their longtime musical cohort, Finnish jazz trumpeter Verneri Pohjola, and full live band, streaming now at YouTube.
Both tracks were met by immediate critical applause, with EARMILK writing, “Building dynamically as graceful string arrangements swell beneath, ‘Highest Mountain’ showcases the group's poignant songwriting and penchant for crafting engaging, dream-like soundscapes.” Meanwhile, Blackbook named “Wishful Information” as one of “Three New Tracks You Need To Be Listening To,” praising the song’s “piercing observations on this worrying new age of algorithmic mind control.”
WATCH “HIGHEST MOUNTAIN (LIVE AT E-STUDIO)”
LISTEN TO “WISHFUL INFORMATION”
Game Changing also includes the panoramic, paranoiac “Predator,” co-produced by Tuomo & Markus with multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Wilson (Dawes, Father John Misty, Angel Olsen) and available everywhere now for streaming and download.
LISTEN TO “PREDATOR”
Tuomo & Markus – who recently lit up Wilco’s Solid Sound Festival with an exhilarating live performance – will celebrate Game Changing with a wide-ranging international tour schedule. North American dates will be announced soon. For updates, please visit tuomomarkus.com.
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Tuomo Prättälä and Markus Nordenstreng first met in 2007 and soon began collaborating as a duo, inspired by a shared passion for vocal harmony and a wide range of American music spanning roots rock, folk, jazz, soul, and psychedelia. The next half decade saw them periodically writing and performing together en route to recording sessions at Tucson, AZ’s WaveLab Recording Studio, backed by such high-profile friends and fans as Calexico’s Joey Burns, John Convertino, and Jacob Valenzuela, Wilco members Pat Sansone and John Stirratt, and The Jayhawks’ Gary Louris.
The resulting double LP, 2016’s Dead Circles, earned acclaim around the globe, with Rolling Stone’s David Fricke hailing it as “a marvelous debut album – steeped in the pioneer stories of the Band, the painted-desert psychedelia of the American Beauty-era Grateful Dead and the modernist extensions of Wilco and the Tucson band Calexico.” “Dead Circles is a rich tapestry of acoustic orchestration,” declared Seattle, WA’s influential KEXP, “often subdued but never enervating or insignificant. Over the delightful melodies, the duo’s harmonies drift airily, easily recalling CSNY and Simon & Garfunkel with reverence.”
Having mastered the studio, Tuomo & Markus transformed into a stellar six-piece live band, including Finnish jazz trumpet sensation Verneri Pohjola, pedal steel guitarist Miikka “McGyver” Paatelainen, bassist Jeremias Ijäs, and drummer-trombonist Juho Viljanen – all of whom feature on Game Changing. The group’s live shows proved wildly ambitious, evincing an expansive sonic approach that saw them sharing stages with Neil Young, Wilco, Jonathan Wilson, and The Jayhawks as well as a memorable 2017 performance at Austin, TX’s SXSW and KEXP live session highlighted by a widescreen cover of The Grateful Dead’s “Jack Straw” (streaming HERE).
Now, with the long overdue Game Changing, Tuomo & Markus have built upon their past triumphs and crafted something even more extraordinary, an urgent, electric collection of inventive improvisation and emotionally direct songcraft that simultaneously conjures both the Finnish north and the American West. From the morning call of the album-opening title track to the extended, winding roads of “Aliens With Extraordinary Talents” and “Hearing Voices,” the new album affirms Tuomo & Markus as uniquely visionary musicians whose roots and energies run long, wide and deep, through genre, era and geography.
“The only thing you can count on/Is things are about to change,” Prättälä and Nordenstreng sing as one in ‘Love Is Coming Down’ – a promise made again and again on this album,” writes Fricke in the album’s exclusive liner notes. “Six years in the waiting and finished amid a fear and uncertainty many of us have never known before, Game Changing is a second album about new beginnings, by a band with a future still being written. Here is the story so far.”
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