"With Finland spewing out beautifully understated treasures left right and centre in recent months, it can be hard to know where to look since it all sounds so good. True to form, City Centre Offices have hit the spot with the first release from fresh off the shelf offshoot label Buro, and it's quite a debut we've been handed.

The Gentleman Losers are nothing short of one of the best things I've heard all year. Soft elements weave in and out of one another to caress and curl around delicate strings and paper thin slow-motion melodies. They enchant, charm and hypnotise their way through 50 minutes of divine subtlety, with tracks that hold an eternity of haunting strings and calming acoustics to gently rock you to sleep.

Slow Guitars contains all the soporific beauty of twilight on a summers evening, while the prologue An Empire Of Coins gently plucks antique acoustics, colouring in an idyllic backdrop for the entire album.

The Gentlemen Losers is utterly bewitching in its humble magnificence. Tracks are evocative and carefully structured; culminating in an album seeped in nostalgia for anonymity.

By Jennifer Allan"



"The Gentleman Losers

Styles: instrumental music with trip-hop overtones? Others: More suited for soundtracking the movements of shadowy silhouettes than rocking ass at a club, Gentlemen Losers paint a vivid picture for their listeners with scant brushstrokes. Swirled into multicolor motion by Kuukka brothers Samu and Ville, this self-titled debut carries the suffering of a thousand years on its shoulders. HA! Gotcha ... yes, this is dramatic music, but it is just music.

More suited for soundtracking the movements of shadowy silhouettes than rocking ass at a club, Gentlemen Losers paint a vivid picture for their listeners with scant brushstrokes. Swirled into multicolor motion by Kuukka brothers Samu and Ville, this self-titled debut carries the suffering of a thousand years on its shoulders. HA! Gotcha ... yes, this is dramatic music, but it is just music.

And it's just enjoyable, from the first underground sludge beat to the last submerged piano line. The Kuukka brothers, like the best film scores and newspaper paginators, use white space to their advantage, surrounding barren soundscapes with an invisible ring of free-floating nothingness. Most compellingly, they don't recycle the same digi-beats over and over, letting the tempo and mood dictate which rhythms to employ, if any. A beautiful example of the brothers' arranging prowess pops up on "Horses of Instruction." You may assume that only a murky drum shuffle could blow the rippled reams of guitar and synth in the right direction. Won't you be surprised, then, when the track flows and curdles without the aid of a rhythm and still holds your attention!? Then, like a sign from above, "Laureline" enters the party and hits it right away, plugging your ears with a slo-mo beat and sensuous slide guitar.

Unbeknownst to many, an instrumental revolution is at hand, burgeoning in the minds, hands, and fingers of upstart groups like Spaghetti Western, Grace Cathedral Park, Billy Brush, and, of course, The Gentlemen Losers. They might not hook you with post-rockian bombast, but their form of seduction is far less obvious and far more subconscious, crawling into the brain and sitting quietly, attentively, rather than clubbing you over the head with dynamics. It may take longer to sink into your skull, but once it's there, it's not a spill, it's a stain."



"The Gentleman Losers - The Gentleman Losers
I might as well get to the meat of what you, the reader, want to know. Screw objectivity, this is the best thing I've heard all 2006. Hear this: I condone this album. A couple of Australians have crafted here a record of inconceivable emotive power that will add quality to your life or I promise to eat the corks off my outback hat (apologies for inappropriate cultural referance - race relations ed). Enter voice of grumpy old man: "Modern music has too many notes." For once, our elders have a point: Take one idea - a simple motif, bare guitar line - and let it speak for itself. Most of those extraneous notes (or in Keane's case all) could quite easily be thrown into the deep caverns of audio-Hell (which is where, incidentally, the aforementioned indie-weepers reside most of the Summer) with a vast improvement in output. Each track on the Gentleman Loser's self-titled debut demonstrates an accute awareness of the deceivingly tardis-like possibility of this premise. Here, the most humble of restrained melodies imparts more information in the 97 seconds of opener An Empire of Coins than any bloated 20-minute, prog-rock "epic" (I'm looking at you Wakeman!). Put bluntly, if this record asked me to jump off a cliff you would find me approaching the ground below seconds later weeping tears of joy that these musical poets had deigned fit to address me. The 'Losers say, through their music, more about our human condition than an entire library of psycho-analysis and philosophy."



"The Gentleman Losers
The Gentleman Losers
The product of two Finnish siblings, The Gentleman Losers create music that's custom-tailored for nocturnes. Sly, shuffling beats provide shakey backbones to skeletal tracks that float by with heavily reverbed guitars and loads of atmosphere as their debut album settles into a well-worn groove of half-decayed melodies and soft triumphs. Recorded on an abandoned mixer from the 50s, their music has equal parts modern day and crackled past.
The out-of-focus, sepia-toned cover artwork seems almost like a cliché considering the music that the group is making, but fortunately the duo has a knack for memorable melodies and subtle production flourishes. After opening with a static-filled intro piece of solo guitar, the album gets going nicely with "Gold Dust Afternoon" as overlapping layers of synths provide glinting backdrops to some dueling guitar melodies that tie the entire piece together. "Mansion On The Dunes" is just as solid, curling watery guitar strums around submerged beats and some chord changes that turn the track into a narcotic nighttime blues ride that doesn't feel a bit long at over six minutes in length.
Part Angelo Badalamenti and part Labradford, The Gentleman Losers have created ten tracks and just under fifty minutes of music that sounds like it could have easily been pulled off a soundtrack to a mysterious, dark noir film. Just about every single track has a soft layer of grit on the surface (probably due to the ancient mixer they used), and it helps to give the release a sort of nostalgic feel. The amazing "Laureline" takes weaves some great slide guitar into another two-part guitar harmony, and along with some soft synths, it's one of the more upbeat songs on the disc, crossing into almost spaghetti western territory. It's a testament to the duo that they can use such simple rhythmic elements and fairly standard instrumentation and yet create songs that are so evocative. Their album isn't about dazzling with quick dynamic changes, but instead working their way into your head with their sidewinder songs like the ghost-town lament of "Slow Guitars." This is music for seeing mirages to.
rating: 7.5"



"When we first heard Finland's Gentleman Losers it was as if their music had always been familiar to us, bringing to mind the instrumental wonder of Vincent Gallo's massively overlooked 'When' album, coaxing dusty guitars, brushed drums and archive documentary music into an epiphany of childhood nostalgia and blissful daydreaming. To be sure, this has been the sort of album that has charmed and beguiled anyone and everyone who's just happened to walk into the office when it's been on - straddling that fine line between twilight beauty and dusky threat. Opening with the creased prologue of 'An Empire of Coins', The Gentleman Losers sound much as you wish Boards of Canada did - taking a water-bled guitar part then incrementally coating it in a queasy blend of crackling aural lint. Recorded at night in a reputedly haunted house that comprises part of Finland's medieval district, The Gentleman Losers describe their music as "one part 60s movie soundtracks, one part wooden electronica, all recorded through a 50s Telefunken mixer we found abandoned in a basement". 'The Gentleman Losers' encapsulate a universe of quiet musical aspirations in a breezy, effortless way that's all-too rare, managing to distil their sound into a pithy diktat : "we wanted to make music from a past that hasn't happened yet...". Album of the year."



"The Gentlemen Losers - s/t (Buro)
Take two finish brothers, a generous amount of late nights, a good dollop of romantic tendency, a dash of Vincent Gallo and a sprinkling of jazz, adjust volume to taste, sit back, and listen to immediately.

-Ron Beasley"



"Büro ist das neue Unterlabel von City Centre Offices Berlin/Manchester und soll eine Plattform für Akustikbands sein. Doch keine Sorge, CCO machen jetzt nicht auf Folk, so wie alle anderen. Vielmehr will man den sowieso schon lange vorhandenen Focus auf Gitarren aus dem Elektronik-Projekt-Kontext befreien und der Zwischenmenschlichkeit einer richtigen Band zurückgeben. Gestartet wird dem Debüt der finnischen Brüder Samu und Ville Kuukka. Gitarre und Electronics ist eine bekannt starke Kombination, doch bei den Gentleman Losers wird die Gitarre in klassischer Blues-Manier eingesetzt, soll heißen: Ville kann richtig gut spielen. Wie Eric Clapton auf Warp.
****"



"The Gentleman Losers
The Gentleman Losers (Büro)

This Finnish duo's debut is a carefully constructed ambient soundscape that woozily makes its way through towering clouds of nebulous menace."



"Pierwsza plyta, opublikowana przez pododdzial City Centre Office - Buro - to debiut dwóch finskich muzyków - braci Samu i Ville Kuukka. Material, który trafil na krazek, powstal w ciagu dziewieciu miesiecy ich pracy w prywatnym studiu w Turku - miescie, w którym dzialaja tak znane wytwórnie, jak Sahko czy Fonal. Do zarejestrowania nagran uzyto analogowego sprzetu - w tym miksera marki Telefunken, pochodzacego az z lat 50. Jaka muzyke przynosi album The Gentleman Losers?

Plyte otwiera lkajaca gitara, wtopiona w szum analogowej plyty i odglosy letniego dnia ("An Empire Of Coins"). Potem pojawiaja sie staroswieckie rytmy o mechanicznej motoryce, na tle których, osadzaja sie rozanielone partie fletu i gitar - akustycznej i elektrycznej ("Gold Dust Afternoon"). Tworzy sie odrealniony klimat cieplego popoludnia, w którym promienie zachodzacego slonca zalewaja wszystko zlocista poswiata. Nieco sentymentalne melodie, kreowane przez gitarowe pasaze, rozbijaja zgrzytliwe przestery, poglebiane dronowymi poglosami ("Mansion On The Dunes"). Z czasem pojawiaja sie brzmienia innych instrumentów akustycznych - wiolonczeli ("Slow Guitars"), skrzypiec ("Silver Mountain"), wibrafonu ("Light Fandango") czy cymbalów ("Salt Of The Sea"). Podszywaja je archaiczne dzwieki organów Mooga, zamieniajace momentami poszczególne utwory w jakby koscielne hymny - jak chocby w laczacym melodyke gospel z brzmieniami folk "Silver Mountain". Gitarowe partie wkraczaja momentami na tereny zarezerwowane dla country - choc niosa je pulsujace glebokimi basami zdubowane podklady rytmiczne ("Ligot Fandango"). Plyta konczy sie osamotnionymi dzwiekami drzacego fortepianu, wpisanymi w glosy ptaków i szum ulicy ("Weed Garden"). Choc w muzyce Finów mozna znalezc elementy wielu gatunków, calosc ma zdecydowanie psychodeliczny sznyt - to zestaw onirycznych impresji o elegijnym charakterze.

-PAWEL GZYL"


http://www.vitalweekly.net/527.html

http://www.kindamuzik.net/recensie/the-gentleman-losers/the-gentleman-losers
This one's in dutch. Don't speak the language, so no idea if he loves us or hates us.

http://www.indiepoprock.net/review.php?id=1663
This one in French.

http://perso.orange.fr/ondefixe/gentlemen.htm
Ondefixe.net, in French.

http://90plan.ovh.net/~lamagicb/archives_VisuDoc.php3?idDoc=2531
La Magic Box writes thusly, en Francais.

http://www.benzinemag.net/musique/GentlemanLosers.htm
One more French review.

http://www.etherreal.com/magazine/disques/?file=thegentlemanlosers_st
Ok, that's enough.