“They say that New York City’s cold this time of year” sings Little Hands’ of Asphalt’s frontman, resplendent in a suitably warm-looking wooly hat. Surely it can’t be colder than Oslo, where temperatures hit minus 20 at certain junctures this weekend. If any particularly hot new bands suddenly emerge the resulting temperature change will make Norway’s pipes burst.
Actually the puzzlingly-named Little Hands… aren’t even part of the festival programme proper – they play a special label event at a lovely old cinema – and those are a couple of this year’s big themes: unofficial gigs in interesting places, and bands with barmy names. Norway’s foremost music showcase and industry schmoozathon is overflowing with intriguing new talents this year. It’s certainly fertile in the fjords.
Words by Si Hawkins
Photo by Helge Brekke
Thursday
We kick off with two bands who already boast a decent following. Team Me will be sailing over to support British Sea Power soon, and are wonderfully watchable. A stageful of annoyingly talented youngsters cranking out MGMT-esque, harmony-laden pop, they also boast a keyboard girl with a duck on her head. Meanwhile Cold Mailman are more earnest, making melodic jingly-jangly stuff with an unexpected lyrical edge before a capacity crowd seemingly intent on buffeting unsuspecting British visitors. That old Viking spirit looms large in the nation’s bars.
Nordic bands tend toward the quirky, and a random wander into one of Oslo’s many venues can often throw up an interesting find. Best intro of the weekend belongs to Daniel Adams Ray at the sizeable Sentrum Scene. A pitch black stage is illuminated only by the four torches wobbling about on the bandmembers’ heads, as they crank out an excellent krautrocky noodle – mesmerising stuff. Then the lights come up and they instantly switch to retro cheese-pop, the like of which you’d only otherwise hear in the montage bit of an old teen flick. They should have stuck with the krautrock, in truth.
From the ridiculous to the sublime, and Agnes Obel in the majestic Kulturkirken Jakob: it’s a grand old church, the perfect setting for her already compelling piano and cello pieces. Even better are Murder, who again have an unpromising name and who we only really bother seeing because the label boss bought us a drink, and you don’t turn down a bevvy in these parts unless you’ve access to a particularly generous trust fund.
Said label dude then frets that their sparse songs will be lost in the fair-sized, half-full Samfunnsalen, but he needn’t have worried. A chubby bloke with a memorable voice flanked by two talented pluckers (one on double bass, the other acoustic guitar), they combine majestically, tight harmonies and taut strings conjuring the spirit of classic Oh Brother-era Americana. This is probably how out-of-town Norwegian pubs sounded years ago, when all the menfolk were banned from drinking within the city limits, and it’s still bloody difficult to get drunk here. One bloke takes to topping up his diet coke with alcoholic handwash.
Friday
Photo by Helge Brekke
Friday begins with the inaugural, Mercury-style Nordic Music Awards, for which some of the biggest names in the region have turned up. Cardigan-clad Swedes First Aid Kit are resplendent in evening dress tonight, Jonsi and partner chew the fat in the Kulturkirten’s basement bar, and Olof Arnalds kicks things off with a delightful half-hour of singalong Icelandic folk. Jonsi wins, and receives the award from Norway’s crown prince. Shame the Nordic answer to Jools Holland is a cross between Alan Partridge and Max Headroom.
Back to the regular programme, and more enjoyable acts with awkward monikers. Margaret Berger gets us off to a sassy start with some thumping trance-based sex-pop. “Bad, bad girls” she sighs, while lots of blokes in the audience have good, good thoughts.
Over to the pictureseque old picture house the Parkteatren, which isn’t on the regular venue list due to being too far to walk without your extremities freezing off. Those inside are a captive audience though, as you’ll watch any old shit rather than venture out into that blasted tundra again: not that this evening’s bands are bad at all. The aforementioned Little Hands of Asphalt – actually taken from an Elvis Costello lyric – play a pleasant folk-rock with useful interjections from an elfin French horn-wielding lass it later transpires crunches numbers for the ministry of defence.
Then we make an excellent find, albeit a band who’ve been around for a while and, again, have a bewilderingly unpromising name. Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson (told you) boom out impressively powerful wall-of-sound rock and have more guitars on the go than a Gibson showroom. Behind them is a freaky old film involving dwarves chasing pigs. This may be why they aren’t better-known, yet.
Back at the city-centre By Larm tent later on, and the Finnish outfit once confusingly known as Le Corp Mince de Francoise – now just LCMDF – bound around the stage in entertaining fashion, their energetic frontwoman having a Margaret Bender-like effect on the many tipsy chaps looking on. It’s always good to bookend an evening with a couple of enthusiastic blondes.
Saturday
Photo by Helge Brekke
After a quick trip to the slopes, Saturday afternoon’s off-piste activities begin in a large hotel room with a few songs from Mhoo, prodigious teens peddling everything from quasi-country to Spanish hoe-downs in infectiously jaunty fashion. Must be those massive grants they get for being a student over here.
Next it’s back to Oslo’s outskirts for the excellent Megaphonic Thrift, playing an exclusive mini-set in a rehearsal studio. Clash winds up right at their feet, the perfect vantage point to have a good gawp at the incessant pedal-stamping that goes into their epic, effect-laden Sonic Youthiness. Fine work with the free hot dogs too – those napkins make excellent earplugs.
We begin the evening programme proper with new Sleigh Bells protégés Deathcrush, a couple of sweet Norwegian girls who go apeshit mental on stage, mounting the faders and making a hugely enjoyable racket. Much less exciting are hotly-tipped outfits Museum of Bellas Artes and Hypertext, the former sounding oddly out of tune and the latter a bit lumpen and uninspired. Perhaps we caught them on a bad day.
Considerably better are Bella Union’s Danish signings Treefight for Sunlight, quirky pop types who begin with a bit of plinky-plonky piano which may also be slightly out of tune, but probably purposefully so. It’s a fine line, and a fine show. Less heralded but also thoroughly enjoyable is Chris Holm, who packs out the intimate Revolver venue – Megaphonic Thrift frontman Richard nods away in the front row – with an impressively varied sound and some less-than jolly lyrics about death, people telling each other to fuck off, and the like.
Onto a couple of varied torch-singers, and while the name Rikke Lie may suggest someone hoping for a bit of misspelled Lykke Li Google action, it’s actually a sub-Celine Dion type wearing an Alice in Wonderland dress and clearly itching to get the audience’s lighters aloft. None are forthcoming. The fabulous Phaedra, on the other hand, is a lot less frilly visually but pricks the ears with an operatic voice and vibe that, as the name suggests, seems to channel the Greek tragedians. Which is something you don’t hear everyday.
We finish back in the big By Larm tent at 3am, watching Scandinavian hip-hop with Icelandic youngsters Retro Stefson, who celebrate their well-received weekend’s work by forming a breakdance circle that takes up much of the dancefloor. Well, anything to keep warm, right kids?
