Jimi Tenor (born Lassi Lehto) is a Finnish singer and multi-instrumentalist residing in Barcelona
(Spain), also
painter and photographer, who plays kitsch music to a techno beat with an
approach that is the musical equivalent of Andy Warhol's pop art.
Tenor sings (often in a sexy falsetto) mocking everybody from soul to glam.
The idea is intriguing but the albums are (at best) uneven. Tenor's best work
is by far on singles.
The Shamans were Tenor on sax and vocals accompanied by a combo
of trumpet, guitar, bass and drums.
They released Total Capacity of 216,5 Litres (Euros, 1988),
Diktafon (Euros, 1989),
Mekanoid (Euros, 1990)
and
Fear of a Black Jesus (Euros, 1992)
before Tenor decided to move to New York.
Eventually Tenor returned with a new sound and a new persona, somewhere in
between
Lydia Lunch's Queen Of Siam and David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.
Or, better, somewhere between Barry White and Prince:
Sahkomies (Sahko, 1994 - Warp, 1999)
is a funny mixture of big-band jazz, mellow soul and orchestral pop.
The movie soundtrack Europa (Sahko, 1995 - Warp, 1999) boasts
an expanding instrumentation
His first mature album, Intervision (Warp, 1997), shows the artist
progressing on what will become his trademark features:
falsetto singing in Can't Stay With You Baby,
trumpet and sax in Outta Space,
funk and jazz in Wiping Out.
The album features his masterpiece, the
synthpop novelty Sugardaddy, that manages to steal the attitude from
Cramps and Suicide.
The EP Venera (Warp, 1998) prepared for the more refined sound of
Organism (Warp, 1999), possibly his best album. Tenor croons like a madman and delivers the
comic and anthemic disco of
Year Of The Apocalypse and Total Devastation
with the same impeccable and ostentatious composure of the
Love Of Life Orchestra.
Tenor increases the doses of jazz (My Mind, City Sleeps)
and soul (Sleep), while surveying the field of
1960s tv soundtracks (Xinotepe Heat).
And he has added one trick to his unfashionable repertory:
Quincy Jones' jazz flute solos.
Tenor's soul obsession exploded on Out Of Nowhere (Warp, 2000), on which
he often impersonates Curtis Mayfield. Accompanied by a
60-piece Polish orchestra, Tenor revises his routine and gives new meaning
to everything he has recorded before.
Hypnotic Drugstore grafts a psychedelic raga on his glam-funk shtick.
Blood On Borscht takes on folk music and opera with
heavy metal grandeur.
Paint The Stars decomposes Broadway's show music.
Night In Loimaa warps exotica.
And Spell quotes Superfly.
While not everything shines, Tenor's artsy ideology turns several tracks into
stylistic puzzles.
Tenor is also involved in more serious (avantgarde) projects like
Impostor Orchestra and City Of Women.
As Impostor Orchestra, he released Heliopause (Sahko, 2000), a
Sun Ra tribute.
Utopian Dream (Sahko, 2001)
is less ambitious than its predecessor, more self-contained and less
arranged. It also boasts some of his most bizarre takes on kitsch music
(Utopian Dream, New World). When it works,
this is amusing post-modern art. Too bad half of the disc is sheer filler,
lounge crooning that sounds improvised in the studio.
(It includes a new version of Paint The Stars).
Higher Planes (Kitty, 2003) refines the same ideas of the previous
albums, perhaps in a lighter, simpler vein
(Cosmic Dive).
Even more predictable was Beyond The Stars (Kitty, 2004), despite the
cosmic theme of the title-track.
Tenor then turned to Afro-funk-jazz on Joystone (Ubiquity, 2007),
featuring
trumpeter Jukka Eskola and saxophonist Timo Lassy with
the West African rhythm section Kabu Kabu (three Fela Kuti alumni),
and
on Inspiration Information Vol 4
(2009), a collaboration with legendary Fela Kuti's drummer Tony Allen.
Kabu Kabu helped him again on
4th Dimension (2009) and
Mystery of Aether (2012),
whereas jazz percussionist Abdissa Assefa was his partner on
Itetune (2011).
Tenor formed Cola & Jimmu with US-born singer Nicole Willis, a project
documented on
Enigmatic (2013) and
Give To You My Love And Devotion (2014).
They then resurrected the Soul Investigators, that had recorded
Keep Reachin Up (2005), for
Tortured Soul (2013) and
Happiness in Every Style (2015).
After Dub of Doom (2013) with Icelandic reggae band Hjalmar,
Tenor penned the Sun Ra-influenced mysterious space jazz
of Exocosmos (2013).
He recorded Mysterium Magnum (2015) with
veteran Finnish big band UMO Jazz Orchestra.
His jazz phase culminated with Saxentric (2016).
The keyboard-heavy
Order of Nothingness (2018), in a trio with
percussionists Ekow Alabi Savage and Max Weissenfeldt,
steered decisively towards the dancefloor.
He also collaborated with Freestyle Man (deep-house producer Klas Lindblad) on the EPs Sleepover (2017) and Are We It? (2019), basically preludes
to
Metamorpha (2020), a collaboration with
house producer Maurice Fulton, an album of silly
instrumental disco-pop but containing one of the gems of his career:
the flute-driven jam The Duel.
Aulos (2020) is an album of
orchestral Latin-funk music a` la
Kid Creole And The Coconuts
and bizarre prog-rock a` la
Frank Zappa (Ten Dimensions).
