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Nordic Music Central Viking Hero

Ateena (Finland) -Yö (single/future album track)

You wouldn’t believe how I came to find this band tonight. I was supposed to be reviewing a Danish band, I think, Hjerertus, a group of pop-punkers and their new EP, but I managed to lose their email by accidentally clicking on delete and I could not find it again, wherever I looked.

But while I was looking I came across an email from Luova Records, which has recently signed Ateena, a six-member band from Finland, who are both jazz and not jazz according to the press release, which I guess puts them in the same quantum physical place as Schrödinger’s alive and dead cat.

Luova explains that it feels that the jazz media is the most suitable platform to present Ateena’s music. Now I’m not strictly jazz media by any measure. Only about one in 25 reviews covers that genre and I often feel uncomfortable because I don’t have the right mindset for jazz. I prefer songs with a tune that tell a story, preferably with an ending.

But my ears perked up while giving ‘Yö’ (‘Night’) a listen.

The first reason is that sometimes you hear a piece of music and you know straight away that it would make for a great TV drama or film theme. That’s happens quite a lot and in this instance I felt immediately that if Mike Post had never written the theme to the 1980s classic US TV cop drama Hill Street Blues then ‘Yö’ would have made for an excellent stand in.

The tight interplay between the instruments and catchy riff sets the scene perfectly for a gritty Cop drama in the opening bars and it has a groove to it that expands what one normally thinks of as jazz into a more soulful place.

Then around halfway through it changes direction into a distinctly proggy piece, let’s call it jazz-prog, with some mazy guitar and keyboard runs permeating it while the rhythm section never permits the snappy underlying beat to eased out.

The song actually tells the story of a girl who dreams of flying and eventually succeeds, soaring over the rooftops a la Peter Pan as the city’s lights go out one by one like candles against the night although without lyrics you’d never guess that. Having knowledge of that fact though, you could easily sense it.

I’ve seen many latter day variations on prog, which appears to be making a sustained comeback just now. Only recently we’ve featured several songs that fall into a ‘prog metal’ category.

Ateena may well not consider that prog is part of this song but many will hear that and without knowing it they make have created a new genre of jazz-soul-prog with this song, a unique concoction I would suggest.

I reckon ‘Yö’ will be great live and I hope we get a chance to see them on stage.

Ateena is a six-member band. Their debut album, which will be released in April 2025, is the result of a two-year process, during which the band played intensively together and refined the tracks to perfection. will formally be released on January 31st.

The band:

Topi Vellonen – Guitar

Valtteri Vähämaa – Guitar

Asko Huisman – Bass

Touko Ruokolainen – Drums

Aimo Nuutinen – Keyboards

Ville Mäkäräinen – Percussion

Find them on:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ateenayhtye/

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