Man Duo is the second coming of Jaakko Eino Kalevi and Long-Sam: cherished producers and good friends from Helsinki whose 2012 debut Amateurs de Vérité refracted outsider electronics through the prism of psychedelic folk. Now the pair are back with a new name and a new album, Orbit, which takes the exotic pop associated with both artists far beyond the dance floor. Across eight tracks, Jaakko and Sami zone in on krautrock, funk, electro, and spaced-out cyber-ballads, executing each with characteristic elan and tunefulness. In fine voice throughout, the pair's lyrics - sung in English, Finnish and Italian - draw on the absurdities of life and love in the modern world. In the time between Amateurs de Vérité and Orbit, Jaakko has enjoyed international success courtesy of his Dreamzone EP (2012), his self-titled 2015 album for Domino, and the Yin Yang Theatre EP for Beats In Space (2014). His links to Sami go deep: the pair lived in the same neighborhood of Jyvaskyla when they were younger and put out their first single - a dubbed-out free-jazz 7" - as teenagers in 2001. Orbit finds both artists pushing each other in a bid to attain new levels of harmony, whether that's in the silken electronic funk of opener "One Formula", which unravels like some blissful mid-80s Pino Donaggio scene-setter, or in the pulsating "What If It Falls", a satisfyingly unorthodox cut that calls to mind Simon & Garfunkel and Dopplereffekt. On "The Middle", an epic slow-burner laced with a terrific guitar solo by Sami, the singer Sean Nicholas Savage blurs the personal and political with an impassioned turn. For "Ile's Dream", "a krautrock-influenced song based on a dream that a friend had," according to Sami, Man Duo channel the wide-eyed euphoria of La Düsseldorf. Then there's "Tanyan Teema" ("Tanya's Theme"), a sweet, bubbly groove about a film character called Tanya that first surfaced on the CORD soundtrack a year or two back, and the sleek electro of "Vanessa", which relates the story of a no-show at a concert in both Finnish (narrated by Sami) and Italian (by Cecilia Butini) before bursting into color. "The Boss" closes proceedings, it's layers of synths and saxophone providing a dusky end to a rich and rewarding album. Cover photo by Arnd Dewald. Mastered by Norman Nitzsche at Calyx, Berlin.
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![Orbit [Analog]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71ZAzjNLwzL.__AC_SX300_SY300_QL70_ML2_.jpg)
