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"Northern Dancer" Steps to the Celestial Ballroom

Tucked away in Russia's extreme northwest, Murmansk has a lengthy history of serving as a way-station for the Western World. Today, Murmansk's 400,000 plus residents have the dubious distinction of belonging to the largest city in the world to endure existence at such a high, northern latitude. It is a world away from the sunny beaches of California...and yet, the music emerging from one of Murmansk's most surprising success stories, Time Is Up, embraces a cosmopolitan consciousness while paying homage to its other-worldly origins.

Comprised of two brothers, Alexey and Albert Popov and Victor Tesler, the tale of Time Is Up is one born of isolation, aspiration and collaboration. In the course of three short years, this trinity of musical prodigies brought together their various talents to explore the potential of the electronic music revolution and recently emerged with "Northern Dancer", a 12-track musical odyssey that is both an auditory journey and a testament to the power of pursuing dreams.

"Northern Dancer" is music by which to live, a colourfully moving montage of sound and vision. Victor and Alexey, who met first as adversaries at a local radio station competition on Murmansk's PowerFM, holed up in their hometown to fuse their influences and inspirations into a musical whole. Alexey's brother Albert, already a celebrated guitarist, was brought on board to lend "Northern Dancer's" more ambient arrangements with visceral and highly emotive touches of guitar. The end result, Time Is Up, is a band of brothers united in their belief that music is a gateway to perception and each of "Northern Dancer's" 12 tracks provide a supreme sonic passport to musical experience.

While North American audiences are bound to be entranced by the instantly accessible appeal of Time Is Up's musical musings, back in the USSR the band has already found a solid fan base. Having joined forces after Alex Popov's fledgling Time Is Up project won a local musical competition with the track "Together", Victor and the Popov brothers focussed on polishing their product and finding creative ways to introduce their music to a wider audience. Following a fortuitous meeting with a Canadian publisher, Christopher Spavins, Time Is Up found themselves working diligently on the production of their first full length album while continuing to capture local accolades with the material under development. Tracks such as "Some Star", "Free Again", "Erase the Pain" and "Northern Dancer" all jumped onto PowerFM's Top 50 charts over 2003 and the group played numerous open air and nightclub gigs free of charge to test their tunes and fuel the fires of their creative ambition. In doing so, Time Is Up was recognized as the city's Best Musical Project of 2003 and in 2004, the band members were dubbed the "Heroes of Murmansk 04".

The same sinuous blend of organic orchestration and synthetic synergy that made Time Is Up into local heroes is likely to make them the band to listen for on a global level in 2005. Tipping their hats to musical mentors without attempting to emulate, Time Is Up takes electronic music to its next natural level, creating a sound both alien and accessible, mechanical, yet deeply imbued with an urgent sense of humanity. As such, "Northern Dancer" marks the culmination of a creative period of composition already marked by critical acclaim and the beginning of another auditory odyssey as Time Is Up's unique sonic brew is offered up to a global audience.

Buoyed by an elastic ease of musical melding and an overarching sense of rhythym, "Northern Dancer" may follow in the footsteps of keyboard composers such as Air, Basement Jaxx and Larry Heard, but keeps time in its own unique manner. An infusion of sonic energy, a relentless commitment to passion and play and an ear for the human condition make Time Is Up the hottest thing to come out of Russia's frozen North.