So here’s something a little different. Finnish project Altamullan Road is the creation of musicians Johanna Kurkela and Johanna Iivanainen, and in the lead up to a debut album due this Summer, they’ve released a single entitled ‘When It's Time’, a swirling and epic cinematic pop track, which sits somewhere between Kate Bush and Clannad – so I guess that’s at least partly promising.
It was actually the opening of ‘When It’s Time’ that appealed to me, because it is really compelling and so unusual too, a wind chime / bell strikes, a violin sets out the musical introduction, before additional strings develop lush textured arrangements. Melodically it does have a medieval or Celtic influence, and when I suggest it’s cinematic, I guess I could imagine the opening being the theme music for a lavish fantasy TV production. But then the direction switches slightly with harmonised vocals chanting out an uplifting ‘pop’ inspired chorus, and the whole thing leaves me reaching for the ‘rewind’ button to double check what I’ve just heard.
Altamullan Road describe themselves as the ‘’sound of love and letting go, the voice of larks, poets and scallywags’’, and the fairytale / fantasy element is clear to hear, whilst musically it is distinct sounding, as well as being interesting. It certainly leaves me intrigued and looking forward to hearing the album, although I’m not sure I could really take 10 songs all with the same styled harmonised vocals, and I haven’t been completely drawn into their magical world quite yet.
Take a look at the video:
For more details on the duo from Oulu you can visit them on their new Facebook page here. You can also read an interview with them here, but it is in Finnish. However translating it, clearly the 2 of them have very similar musical and cinematic inspirations and a very definite vision of how they want their music to sound, which is lovely to hear.