Hardly the most prolific of duos, Nick Whitecross and Martin Terefe made their debut album, ’The Orange Album’, no less than thirteen years ago! However, dig past the startling electro opening beats of ‘Even Giants Fall’ and you will hear the real heart and soul of their remarkably deep and vibrant follow-up album, ‘From Here To Helsinki’.

I have to tell you that the sheer musicality of this first-class trip into a fascinatingly gentle soundscape gives a genuine understanding of why Martin Terefe has been able to collaborate with such luminaries as Cat Stevens (Yusuf), Ron Sexsmith and KT Tunstall, while even Jason Mraz and James Morrison have presented works bearing Terefe’s influence.

Nick Whitecross enjoys his lead singer role with Kissing The Pink but has an equally impressive line-up of musical partners in Jem, A-ha and X-press2, among many others. Little wonder, then, that they have so limited an amount of time to work together, something that I feel they should either do more frequently, to stretch their own limits, or else wait another thirteen years and ‘do a Bush’, as any fans of Kate of that surname are only too aware, to keep the market waiting for another thoughtful and provocative assemblage of songs.

From what I understand, this new album was written in a flat rented to the guys by the taxi driver, who collected them from Prague Airport in the summer of 1999. Track 2 (‘The Collector’) is a lovely, languid diversion into a ‘Beatles-like’ memory lane that has a definitely Czech-style backdrop. It is clear to my ears that these chaps were influenced heavily by what they had seen and heard in that beautiful capital city. However, the fourth track, ‘Sunshine’, is an acoustic love song that could have been written for Cat Stevens. And so it goes on. Original, yet lovingly crafted sounds that have a world appeal and have been worked together wonderfully by the progressive Swedish producers, Claes Bjorklund and Andreas Olsson. Good listening, with a timeless quality