Tuesday, July 30, 2013

Cola & Jimmu (Nicole Willis & Jimmy Tenor) - Enigmatic (2013)




Recording artists Jimi Tenor & Nicole Willis who are life partners as well as past collaborators, reunite for their new project, artist name Cola&Jimmu, 'Cola", a kind of pseudonym of Nicole and 'Jimmu", associated with the legend of the first emperor of Japan, Jimnu Tenno. Both Tenor and Willis have fronted their own projects over the past decade, Willis most recently working with Helsinki - based group the Soul Investigators, for their albums Tortured Soul & Keep Reachin' Up, Timmion Records 2005, 2013. The Helsinki Sanomat recently called Willis & the Soul Investigators 'the world's best on the stage of Tavastia". The title track of Keep Reachin' Up was chosen in February 2012 for POTUS, Barack Obama's Re - Election Spotify Playlist. 


Tenor also contributed horn arrangements to the 2 albums in the collaborative effort of Willis & the Soul Investigators. Tenor & Willis also wrote and recorded tracks from release of Tenor's Call Of The Wild, from the LP Out Of Nowhere, Warp Records 2000. As of late, Jimi Tenor collaborated with Tony Allen for their LP on Strut Records 2009, Inspiration Information, eclectic 'outsider' Itetune on Temmi Kongi 2011, with Abdissa Assefa, & the self titled Soft Focus with Lary 7 on Tommi Grönlund's Puu/Sähko Recordings 2013. Willis & Tenor have roots in dance - floor music with there separate success' such as Tenor's techno classic Take Me Baby, & Willis' neo - soul New York based project Repercussions, Promise Me Nothing which peaked at # 6 on Hot Dance Music, Club Play chart of Billboard Magazine, with remixes from Master's At Work and Supa DJ Dmitry. Cola&Jimmu revisit 1990 house, which bares so many monikers. Cola & Jimmu title it 'deep house revival", drawing influences from Bobby Konders releases on NuGroove to Yellow Magic Orchestra's Firecracker, with vocal styles comparable to Gwen Guthrie & CeCe Peniston


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