Photo by Appu Jasu
When Finnish shoegaze newcomers NEØV released their joyful debut album Orange Morning in early 2013 NOTHING BUT HOPE AND PASSION couldn’t help but being quite impressed by its quality. The band around mastermind Anssi Neuvonen provided a high quality first full-length, one that could easily stick up to international standards. Epic songs, dreamy synthesizers and fuzzy guitars dominated the music of Orange Morning, making NEØV one of the most promising new bands from Scandinavia.
Now the band is about to take the next step as the sophomore longplayer Dominique is set for a release in the second half of 2014. The first single from it, Laketown, already hinted on a certain pop-focussed progress without denying the group’s roots. NEØV are ready for the world and it’s about time for the world to take notice of these gentleman. Maybe our infamous Introducing-Q&A could help with that.
How would you describe your music to a deaf person?
Get yourself to the nearest vantage point and look around you. Our music is a collision of the vastness you are feeling and the small details you are seeing.
Imagine you have to create a mixtape to introduce people to your music. Which artists/ tracks, aside of your own, would be part of it?
I’ve always enjoyed works of ENNIO MORRICONE, BRIAN ENO, Erik Satie, Phil Spector, PINK FLOYD, DAVID BOWIE and THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, to name a few. For the playlist, I would also choose something from THE RADIO DEPT, LIEKKI, VIRTA and UNDERWATER SLEEPING SOCIETY.
I called Samuli about this question and he would like to include something from AIR‘s Talkie Walkie, DEATH CAB FOR CUTIES‘s Plans and CAMEL’s The Snow Goose. He’s into BAT FOR LASHES, too. I won’t call Ari because he’s usually unconnected but I know he likes THE BESNARD LAKES! This mixtape draft might give you some clue about our music but I know we would like to change almost everything tomorrow!
Would you rather be a dragon or have a dragon?
I have a dragon and sometimes I am a dragon. The dragon is inside me and when I can’t pass it, it takes control of me and I become the dragon.
Imagine you don’t have any budget limits. Would sort of music video would you produce? Which gueststars, which plot?
There are several options.At first we would hire a group of the world’s most talented scientists and see if they could build a time machine that would take us to the turn of the 19th and 20th century when we could seek out Georges Méliès in Paris and introduce this new art form from the future – music video – to him. Hopefully he would be interested in directing a video for us! If the first option turns out to be impossible, we would love to scan our nighttime dreams into full HD 1080p somehow. That would be such an excellent material for the music video in its irrationality and absurdity. With a limitless budget we could try all sorts of things but I have to confess that we’ve been excited about working with Appu Jasu in recent months!
If you as a group could have an alternative job together – what would it be?
That would be a catastrophe in any other case than how things are right now… It’s our music and our friendship that keep us together.
The music & culture industry is currently about to redefine itself on many levels. Do you feel like being completely and utterly at the its mercy, or should things be seen as a chance for artists?
Of course it’s a huge chance for today’s artists to be able to find almost everything on the web. I think it’s really inspiring. And now the beautiful memories of an album that was so hard to reach back to the days, now those memories are yet more inspiring! There’s definitely no reason for being at someone’s mercy if conditions are changing. What would the dragon do? As long as you can work with people who really care about music you should be happy!
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