Slow (Producer & DJ)
Encyclopedia
Slow or DJ Slow is a Finnish DJ
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...

 and music producer. His first encounters with hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...

 acts such as Run-DMC, Public Enemy and Eric B & Rakim led him to pursue career in DJing, later making music and remixing others tracks. Slow is known for his nu-jazz style and for his production of commercial music for high-profile projects for advertising, TV, and cinema.

Career

In the year 1990 Slow met JA-Jazz who was also a DJ and worked at the same department store's music department, where Slow worked. With money accrued from his evening job, Slow bought a pair of Technics
Technics (brand)
1960s:*SX-601 Electronic Organ — an origin of Technics SX keyboard series, the result of cooperative works of National Electronic Organ Company and Ace Tone...

 turntable
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...

s and good bunch of records.

He participated in the Finnish DMC
Disco Mix Club
Disco Mix Club is a DJ remix service founded by Tony Prince which began as a radio show in 1981 on Radio Luxembourg in the UK. Prince helped popularise a new style of DJ mixes using the turntable as an instrument. DMC started operating as a remix service in 1983. They started producing remix...

 Mixing Championships and won the contest four years in a row: in 1992, 1993, 1994 and 1995. Winning performances were based on strong scratching
Scratching
Scratching is a DJ or turntablist technique used to produce distinctive sounds by moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable while optionally manipulating the crossfader on a DJ mixer. While scratching is most commonly associated with hip hop music, since the late 1980s, it has been used...

 skills, beatmatching
Beatmatching
Beatmatching is a disc jockey technique of pitch shifting or timestretching a track to match its tempo to that of the currently playing track e.g. the kicks and snares in two house records hit at the same time when both records are played simultaneously...

 and a little bit of acrobatics. Equipment used was two Technics SL-1200
Technics SL-1200
The Technics SL-1200 MK2 MK3 MK4 MK5 MK5G M5G MK6 LTD & GLD are a series of turntables manufactured since October 1972 by Matsushita under the brand name of Technics. S means "Stereo", L means "Player". Originally released as a high fidelity consumer record player, it quickly became adopted among...

 direct-drive turntable
Direct-drive turntable
A direct-drive turntable is one of two main phonograph designs being manufactured today. The other style is the belt-drive turntable. Each name is based upon the type of drive motor used...

s and a DJ mixer
DJ mixer
A DJ mixer is a type of audio mixing console used by disc jockeys.The key features that differentiate a DJ mixer from other types of audio mixers are the ability to redirect a non-playing source to headphones and the presence of a crossfader, which allows for an easier transition between two sources...

 and musical styles ranged from hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...

 to funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 and jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

.

Slow's friendship with JA-jazz continued and in 1995 Ja-Jazz introduced him to James Spectrum and together they formed a band called Pepe Deluxé
Pepe Deluxé
Pepe Deluxé is a Finnish electronic music oriented band, formed in 1996 by DJ Slow JA-Jazz and James Spectrum in Helsinki, Finland. They started to experiment with sounds of hip hop, big beat, breakbeat and downtempo. DJ Slow departed the band in 2001 to pursue solo projects. JA-Jazz has been...

. Their style could be described as a mixture of big beat
Big beat
Big beat is a term employed since the mid-1990s by the British music press to describe much of the music by artists such as The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Chemical Brothers, The Crystal Method, and Propellerheads typically driven by heavy breakbeats and synthesizer-generated loops and patterns in...

, trip-hop, and hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...

. Bands first outing was an 1998 EP
Extended play
An EP is a musical recording which contains more music than a single, but is too short to qualify as a full album or LP. The term EP originally referred only to specific types of vinyl records other than 78 rpm standard play records and LP records, but it is now applied to mid-length Compact...

 titled Three Times a Player, which was chosen as Record of the month on Muzik
Muzik
Muzik was a UK dance music magazine published by IPC Media from June 1995 to August 2003.Muzik was created by two former Melody Maker journalists, Push and Ben Turner. Push was the editor of Muzik from its launch until he left the magazine in 1998, at which point Turner took over as editor...

 magazine.
Pepe Deluxé's first full-length album, Super Sound was released 1999 by UK's Catskills Records. Due to clearance problems (the tracks were heavily sampled), they had to do a new version of the album with many of the tracks re-created with cleared samples or with live instruments. New version of the album were release subsequently in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, The Netherlands, the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, and Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

One track from the album, "Woman in Blue", later re-named Before You Leave was chosen by Levi's jeans' ad agency to be featured on their worldwide advertising campaign in 2001.

During this time Pepe Deluxe guys were also asked to do remixes to artists like Tom Jones
Tom Jones (singer)
Sir Thomas John Woodward, OBE , known by his stage name Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer.Since the mid 1960s, Jones has sung many styles of popular music – pop, rock, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, techno, soul and gospel – and sold over 100 million records...

, The Cardigans
The Cardigans
The Cardigans are a Swedish rock band formed in the town of Jönköping in October 1992.Their debut album Emmerdale gave them a solid base in their home country and enjoyed some success abroad, especially in Japan. It was not until their second album Life that an international reputation was secured...

, and Eminem
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...

.
After lot of promoting and concerts around the world, Slow decided to depart from the group because he wanted to pursue solo projects.

Between 1999 and 2001 worked as Head of A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...

 at EMI
EMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...

 Finland, launching a new dance label called Nozle. The label released singles from dance acts such as Campaus, Z-MC, and Jori Hulkkonen
Jori Hulkkonen
Jori Hulkkonen, born 28 September 1973, is a Finnish DJ and a producer of house music, originally from Kemi, Finland. Hulkkonen started his career in the early 1990s when he worked with Jukka Hautamäki, Tuomas Salmela and Ari Ruokamo for their own label Lumi Records...

's Step Time Orchestra. Campaus was a dance act Slow started with a Finnish producer Rauli Eskolin.

In 2002 Slow formed SlowHill
SlowHill
SlowHill is a Finnish instrumental downtempo/lounge band project formed by the Slow and the award-winning saxophonist Tapani Rinne in 2002...

 with Finnish saxophonist Tapani Rinne
Tapani Rinne
Tapani Rinne is a Finnish musician, composer and record producer, who is known for his experimental and innovative style with the clarinet and saxophone.-Career:...

, known for his band RinneRadio
RinneRadio
RinneRadio is group of electro jazz pioneers from Finland. Operating on the boundaries of jazz and electronic music, the output of RinneRadio has been described as "some jazz, plenty of techno and ambient influences, a few poppy melodies, and hints of world music"...

. The band fused jazz sounds with electronic beats and got their first album Finndisc released on Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...

. On the same year, DJ Slow's single called "Got to Funk" went to number 1 in the Finnish dance chart and peaked at number 19 on the Finnish singles chart. The track was originally made for Hartwall
Hartwall
Hartwall is a beverage company based in Helsinki, Finland. It was founded in 1836. Its soft drinks range includes Hartwall Jaffa and Hartwall Novelle water. The company also owns the license for manufacturing and selling PepsiCo's Pepsi, 7 Up and Mountain Dew brands in Finland...

's Upcider drink commercial but due to the huge demand from the audience and DJ's, he decided to make it a proper track and release is as a single.

In 2003 Slow worked on lot of remixes such as The Crash
The Crash (band)
The Crash was a pop-rock band from Turku, Finland, originally influenced by Britpop but later taking its lead from a diverse range of genres including Motown, Disco, New Wave and 80's rock. The band formed after Teemu Brunila and Samuli Haataja met in 1991, with both Erkki Kaila and Dani Aavinen...

's track Star and TV series scores for Finnish television.

In 2004 Slow released his debut album This Is Now and started a weekly radio show Burner on Helsinki's Groove FM with hip hopper Paleface
Paleface (Finnish musician)
Karri Pekka Matias Miettinen , better known by his stage name Paleface, is a Finnish hip hop musician.- Albums :* The Pale Ontologist * Quarter Past * Studio Tan * Helsinki – Shangri-La...

.

In 2005 SlowHill
SlowHill
SlowHill is a Finnish instrumental downtempo/lounge band project formed by the Slow and the award-winning saxophonist Tapani Rinne in 2002...

 released their second album Fennika on Plastinka Records, did remixes e.g. To BWO's Sixteen Tons of Hardware. With Tapani Rinne
Tapani Rinne
Tapani Rinne is a Finnish musician, composer and record producer, who is known for his experimental and innovative style with the clarinet and saxophone.-Career:...

, Slow made also the score for Finnish movie Koti-ikävä which was nominated for the Finland's equivalent to Oscar, the Jussi.

Year 2006 was a turning point in Slow's career in many ways. He was invited to play a set at Midem International Music Market's
Midem
-MIDEM:Short for Marché International du Disque et de l'Edition Musicale, MIDEM is the world's largest music industry trade fair, which has been held annually at and around the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, France, since 1967...

 40th anniversary opening night in Cannes
Cannes
Cannes is one of the best-known cities of the French Riviera, a busy tourist destination and host of the annual Cannes Film Festival. It is a Commune of France in the Alpes-Maritimes department....

. He also released his second album Pronto!, later that year the album was also released in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

. He also played at the Wallpaper magazine's design awards in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, Milan's furniture fair at Artek
Artek (company)
Artek is a Finnish furniture company. It was founded in December 1935 by architect Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino Aalto, visual arts promoter Maire Gullichsen and art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl. The founders chose a non-Finnish name, the neologism Artek was meant to manifest the desire to combine...

's pavilion, Klara Festival in Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

, and produced music for Nokia
Nokia
Nokia Corporation is a Finnish multinational communications corporation that is headquartered in Keilaniemi, Espoo, a city neighbouring Finland's capital Helsinki...

, Ikea
IKEA
IKEA is a privately held, international home products company that designs and sells ready-to-assemble furniture such as beds and desks, appliances and home accessories. The company is the world's largest furniture retailer...

, and Finlandia Vodka
Finlandia Vodka
Finlandia Vodka is produced from Finnish-grown six-row barley and pure glacier water.The barley is distilled into a grain spirit using a continuous multi-pressure distillation system at Altia Corporation's distillery in Finnish village of Koskenkorva...

 among others, developing into the most sought-after commercial music composers in Finland.

In 2010 SlowHill
SlowHill
SlowHill is a Finnish instrumental downtempo/lounge band project formed by the Slow and the award-winning saxophonist Tapani Rinne in 2002...

 returned with their third album, titled Muzak.

Albums

SlowHill: Muzak

(Universal Music) Album 2010

1. Tenho

2. Parasol

3. Finnlite

4. Pohjalo

5. Shine

6. Le Vapour

7. Toiset Meistä

8. Saunatheque

9. Utu

10. Sshhh

Slow: Pronto!

(Plastinka Records) Album 2006

1. Suite #431

2. Little By Little

3. Back In L.A.

4. Sambesque Tin-Tin

5. Track Down Pronto!

6. Fall Upon Love

7. Again And Again

8. Carnivále Mystique

9. Lullaby At 8:45 pm

SlowHill: Fennika

(Plastinka Records) Album 2005

1. Come Back As A Butterfly

2. Fundador

3. Riekko

4. Everyone Is A Star

5. La Noche En La Isla

6. Ammulla/Illalla

7. Thursday

8. Fennika

9. Lost Friends

10. Niko's Dream

DJ Slow: This Is Now


(Tiger Helsinki/BMG) Album 2004

1. These Jeans (R Way 2 Hotta!) feat. L.A. Skin 3.50

2. Feel The Vibe feat. Jungle Brothers 4.28

3. Got To Funk 3.47

4. (I'm Over You) Pablo feat. Teemu Brunila 5.49

5. Sunshine feat. Max C 3.56

6. Top-20 People feat. L.A. Skin 4.06

7. Start To Pray 4.10

8. Get Down, Give It Up feat. L.A. Skin & Élancy 4.32

9. Keep Moving feat. Midnight Sun 5.13

10. This Is Now feat. L.A. Skin & Christa Renwall

SlowHill: Finndisc

(Blue Note) Album 2002

1. Slowjazz 6.28

2. Super Blue 3.38

3. Positive 4.53

4. Fishbass Fusion 3.57

5. Just A Phrase 4.47

6. Valo 5.04

7. Yesterday Star 5.08

8. Small Stone 5.55

9. Fragonardo 4.15

10. Song For eetu 1.35

Compilations

Various Artists Eat&Joy vol.1 - mixed and compiled by DJ Slow

(Plastinka Records) Album 2005

1. Slowhill:La Noche En La Isla 3:39

2. Husky Rescue: Rainbow Flows 5:51

3. ToneKroup: Mood Division 4:19

4. Lightman: Oil On Canvas 2:31

5. ACCU: Out Of the Blue 3:38

6. Teddy Rok Seven: Feel (Featuring Okou) 4:36

7. Korpi Ensemble: Everything’s All Right 4:05

8. Infekto: Beautiful (Instrumental) 2:38

9. Ro*danmaa: Track 7 5:38

10. Quintessence: Friday 5:25

11. Jazzgangsters: Feeling Sad Tonight 3:53

12. Uusi Fantasia: Fantasia 4:00

Singles

DJ Slow: (I'm Over You) Pablo

(Tiger Helsinki/BMG) CD-single 2004

1. (I'm Over You) Pablo Radio Edit 3.48

2. (I'm Over You) Pablo Dallas Superstars Remix 6.32

3. (I'm Over You) Pablo Fu-Tourist Remix 5.47

4. (I'm Over You) Pablo Album Version 5.49

5. (I'm Over You) Pablo Video

DJ Slow: This Is Now

(Tiger Helsinki/BMG) Album 2004

1. These Jeans (R Way 2 Hotta!) feat. L.A. Skin 3.50

2. Feel The Vibe feat. Jungle Brothers 4.28

3. Got To Funk 3.47

4. (I'm Over You) Pablo feat. Teemu Brunila 5.49

5. Sunshine feat. Max C 3.56

6. Top-20 People feat. L.A. Skin 4.06

7. Start To Pray 4.10

8. Get Down, Give It Up feat. L.A. Skin & Élancy 4.32

9. Keep Moving feat. Midnight Sun 5.13

10. This Is Now feat. L.A. Skin & Christa Renwall


DJ Slow: Keep Moving


(Tiger Helsinki/BMG) CD-single 2004

1. Keep Moving 5.13

2. These Jeans (R Way 2 Hotta!) 4.06

DJ Slow: These Jeans (R Way 2 Hotta!)

(Tiger Helsinki/BMG) CD-single 2004

1. These Jeans (R Way 2 Hotta!)

DJ Slow: Got To Funk

(Tiger Helsinki/BMG) CD-single 2003

1. Got To Funk (Radio)

2. Got To Funk (OG Club Cut)


Paleface with DJ Slow: ´Til The Break Of Dawn


CD-single (BMG) 2003

Paleface with DJ Slow: Wannabe MC (Album Track)

(BMG) 2003

SlowHill: Super Blue

(Blue Note) CD-single 2001

1. Super Blue 3.38

External links

  • Slow.fi – official website
  • Slow at Myspace
    Myspace
    Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....

  • Slow at Discogs
    Discogs
    Discogs, short for discographies, is a website and database of information about audio recordings, including commercial releases, promotional releases, and bootleg or off-label releases. The Discogs servers, currently hosted under the domain name discogs.com, are owned by Zink Media, Inc., and are...

  • Slowhill album review on Suomijazz page
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