Nuspirit Helsinki

Nuspirit Helsinki's debut full-length fulfills the promise shown on the collective's earlier 12" releases for Guidance. Like those EPs, this album offers a diverse selection of music that is as much jazz as it is dance music. The group's core members are all DJs and producers, yet the countless guests they invite to join them are all musicians and vocalists. Often, so many artists on one album can be disastrously inconsistent. That definitely isn't the case here, though. Even with anywhere from five to ten different guests playing on every song, including a stable of vocalists, the group manages to craft an album that's distinctly Nuspirit Helsinki. Much of this trademark sound should be credited to Tom Malm, who contributes undeniably enveloping string arrangements. It helps, of course, that the group does have so many vocalists to guest on the album. These vocalists give each song its own distinct character, as do the individual musicians who contribute to each and every song here. It also helps that there are many brief interludes intermittently placed throughout the album, many of them showcases for Malm's absolutely beautiful strings. These interludes also help the album flow from one song to the next without a trace of monotony. Really, you can't ask for anything more from this group of Finnish artists. Every song here is its own distinct work of art, and the many guest vocalists and musicians make the album as a whole play like a mix. Like the similar-minded electronic jazz collective Jazzanova, Nuspirit Helsinki is completely uncategorizable. The collective knows no limits but its own creativity and ambition, and this album is definite, and wonderful, proof of that. ~ Jason Birchmeier|