When Team Poule visited Helsinki for Flow Festival last month, we also had the chance to meet up with the fine lads of Satellite Stories who were playing a gig in town that week. If you have already caught them live, you’ll know that they’re quite an energetic bunch. High speed, guitar-led indie-pop at its finest – which is somewhat surprising given the boys are from the more Northern part of Finland, more precisely the adorable town of Oulu, sixth largest in Finland, with an average summer temperature of 15C (59F) and a winter longer and colder than anyone would ever really want. It’s ice over ice over ice, over ice, they said.
Their debut album titled Phrases To Break The Ice isn’t just a nice double entendre though. And according to extensive online research (read: Wikipedia) Oulu is one of Europe’s “living labs” – “where residents experiment with new technology (such as NFC tags and ubi-screens) at a community-wide scale.” who knew!
So, bred in this “living lab” Phrases To Break The Ice is stuffed with brilliant party/dance indie-pop tracks that just make you jump around and are made to sing along to. Let’s Go To Mexico! Admittedly, their approach is not groundbreakingly new but who needs experiments when you just master what is already out there. Truly fantastic debut album from start to finish – out now on Berlin’s XYZ, and up on Spotify too.
They also shared the first single Anti-Lover for Poule d’Or 10 – which you can still download for free, from the left sidebar. Satellite Stories are best to be consumed live though and as luck would have it, the quartet is currently touring Europe with this album, check their dates here – highly recommended.
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