Sätilä releases new EP ‘on the verge of something’
25 September 2020
Newsdesk
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Finnish born artist Sätilä reveals his new EP ‘on the verge of something’, including the brand new lead track ‘4AM’.
His first body of work, ‘on the verge of something’ is a collection of six tracks which showcase the breadth and depth of his music. Including two new, unheard tracks, and four previously released songs, the EP is the perfect introduction to the rising alternative pop artist. Musically the EP moves from indie to left-leaning pop to electronic music drawing inspiration from contemporaries such as Tame Impala, MGMT, Foster the People, Lykke Li, Maggie Rogers, Bon Iver and James Blake, among others.
The EP opens with the soaring lead single ‘4AM’, a fusion of indie and synth pop with an anthemic chorus. “The song is about sleeplessness at night caused by worries of the future or life decisions” explains Sätilä, “Personally, I feel like this has been more relevant now than probably ever before. I’m just about to graduate from university and try to find my place in this crazy world in this crazy time. These seasons of transition are sometimes the hardest.”
The song is accompanied by a beautiful video, depicting the restlessness of a sleepless night through dance, and starring the dancer Juan Tiardo. The video is directed by Glashier, who has worked with Bonobo, Dream Wife and Vok. It was filmed in Berlin in June, just as the city was emerging from lockdown.
The EP includes previously released songs ‘Expired’, ‘Slow Down’, ‘Bend and Break’, and ‘Like You Do’, as well as new song ‘Soldier’. The song was written a few years ago during Sätilä’s time in Australia, with St. Humain who also co-wrote ‘Expired’: “We wanted to write a love story about a situation where one of the two is committed to saving the relationship and working while the other is doing quite the opposite. When is the right time to give up and admit that things are not going to change?” The song is layered with synths and brings even more pop sounds into Sätilä’s sound.
Finnish born, London based artist Sätilä, aka Teemu Sätilä, combines a fresh fusion of infectious alternative/indie music with rich pop soundscapes. Having started writing songs at the age of seven after learning the piano, Sätilä later moved to Sydney, Australia, where he studied songwriting and joined an alternative rock band. However, he soon realised his ambition to create something that was entirely his own, eventually heading back to Europe to pursue his own sound.
“For 2019, my goal was to make an album” says Sätilä, “I was intrigued by the challenge of making a full body of work so I dropped out of university (London’s Goldsmiths) and started working on the album instead”
It was the move to London a year previously which had opened his mind to a shift in sounds for his own music, having traditionally followed an alternative rock path. “Moving to London had freed my mind to not think about my music too commercially, suffocating creativity and appreciating my background in alternative rock. I had already worked on ‘Like You Do’ and ‘4AM’ back in Finland with the guys from electronic folk duo Lake Jons. They kind of told me to get rid of the acoustic guitar and switch to electric guitars while pushing me more into the world of electronic music. That was the beginning of the process of liberating me from the folk rock, singer-songwriter space I was in when I first started releasing music”
