Press Release

If Since his first album and singles started bubbling up on labels like Keys Of Life and his own Global A, Johannes Auvinen—known amongst an increasingly wide circle of electronic music followers as Tin Man—has used music as a means of transport. Dark and chilly yet deeply affecting, a peculiar sort of atmospherics were the thread running through the acid explorations of his early work and the otherworldly techno-pop that followed, vibes emanating from a world either not too distant from our own or a bit too close to the one we currently inhabit for comfort. But after the California fever-dreams of Wasteland (Global A, 2008) and Cool Wave (Cheap, 2009) and the beautifully bomb-scarred world of Scared (White Denim, 2010), listeners witnessed a rupture in the icy-gray terrain Tin Man had spent years wandering through: opening 2011 with the Technicolor acid of “Nonneo,” the acclaimed first single in Absurd’s Acid Test series, and hitting his stride with the piano-inflected house of Perfume (Salon), Auvinen not only opened the blinds both on Tin Man’s sound signature but on the wealth of musical material he’d started developing during stint in at the World Expo in Shanghai.
 
But rather than represent a break with the atmosphere that’s come to define the Tin Man project, Vienna Blue—his latest and the first transmission from Global A since 2008—feels like the light at the end of the tunnel, both a culmination of Auvinen’s 2011 material and a new direction for one of contemporary techno’s most distinctive personalities. Tin Man himself may put the transformation best in the volume’s title cut: “I’ll find a way to sing it sweeter.” While electronics still propel Tin Man’s music, strings and winds have entered his vernacular, suffusing his beat-driven material with warmth and tangibility and filling in the gaps between tracks with a kind of chamber music derived from electroacoustic performances in Shanghai. Vienna Blue doesn’t feel quite like techno, but neither does it feel straightforwardly classical, or even like techno taking on classical; rather, it’s another place Tin Man has transported us to, albeit one with a pulse that seemed to have vanished from the landscapes we’d followed him into before.
 
Over 22 tracks, Tin Man shows us a city both grand and intimate: from the sweeping panoramas of its vocal tracks to the quiet, tucked-in corners of its pseudo-classical etudes, Vienna Blue presents the place variety of scales. Opening with the title cut, featuring Tin Man in full crooner mode over stately synth-pop, Vienna Blue takes an areal view of the city both geographically and psychologically before setting us down at sunrise. We watch the fog burn off over tracks like “Music On The Radio,” “Public Transport,” and “Crow,” where Tin Man the frontman steps back to let Auvinen the composer stand front and center. While his new approach to arrangement and songwriting may set Vienna Blue apart from past releases, Tin Man hasn’t forsaken the sort of tunes, falling somewhere between club track and pop song, he’s known for: fighting back dissonance with warm synth textures and deeply felt vocals, “Ice Blue Eyes” evokes the sweep of “Wasteland” with newfound emotional directness. “Music Of The Spheres,” featuring some of the album’s most sensitive string arrangements and drum programming, juxtaposes the timeless with the contemporary, making for one of the most unabashedly beautiful moments you’ll find on a Tin Man record. But perhaps more than any other track on the album, “Tender Is The Night” exemplifies this album’s unique emotional directness, inviting us into some forgotten square where Tin Man’s baritone and plucked strings reverberate through the chill. As we settle in, our tour becomes more adventurous: there’s the interplay of quick beats and half-time orchestration in “Opposite Day,” the anxiously unpredictable chords of “Whimsical Chairs” and ‘The Tenants,” the knotted-up energy bursting at the seems of “Work Away.” In its final moments, Auvinen takes a step back with “Whose Irony,” with bittersweet washes of strings gripping us like some uncertain epiphany. It’s a fitting end to an album that documents a place without pigeonholing or boiling down: while we’re always in Tin Man’s Vienna, we’re ultimately asked to put this place together for ourselves.
 
Like any great city, Vienna Blue offers a vastly different experience to its tourists and residents: while the record’s beauty is immediately apparent, the breadth of its sensitivity and musical sophistication must be lived with and untangled over time. Intricately paced, Vienna Blue makes for a satisfying complete listen, but it also invites us to explore and return to its constituent parts individually, like favorite churches or museums. Perhaps Auvinen’s most epic work to date in terms of scale, it’s also among his most intimate creations—a listening experience that’s simultaneously immersive and expansive, that’s challenging yet inviting, that’s sincerely personal without overt romance or reverence. And like vintage Tin Man, it’s music that won’t soon leave your side.

Text by: Jordan Rothlein

Press Contact: Gamall Awad - Backspin Promotions
Email: g(AT)backspinpromo.com
Tumblr: http://backspinpromo.tumblr.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/backspinpromo

Please note: Backspin is covering this release worldwide

Artist: TIN MAN
Title: VIENNA BLUE
Label: GLOBAL A
Release Date: February 14th 2012

01. Vienna Blues
02. Music On The Radio
03. Winterize
04. Public Transport
05. Crow
06. Nervy System
07. Ice Blue Eyes
08. OK, Improvise
09. Music Of The Spheres
10. Break Point Logic
11. Tender Is The Night
12. Decent Stories
13. Fake Or Make
14. Gratitude
15. Manifest Destiny
16. Opposite Day
17. The Tenants
18. Whimsical Chairs
19. Urban Animals
20. Work Away
21. What Will Happen To Us?
22. Whose Irony?



Stream
Forthcoming

Video
TBC

Download
A MP3 for websites will be available

Live dates
TBA

Links
Tin Man Music: http://www.tinmanmusic.com

Other Information
Forthcoming

What The Press Are Saying
Forthcoming