art-star.

So I cut my vacation short to fly back to Oslo to see Wintermare play at Cafe Fiasco on saturday night. I got there early (as in, very very early - before sound check) and there already was a great atmosphere, the boys were just hanging out, being silly and allowing me on stage to hug them all and wish them good luck for the show. There was a surprisingly eager audience, including a lot of foreign kids (for once I didn’t feel like the odd one out) and one guy who moved into Uno and Eirik’s old apartment in Kjellmyra… But anyway I am rambling. The show was great, though not as powerful as usual - probably partly due to Uno’s sore throat, he was drinking a lot of tea and eating vanilla ice-cream to make it pass. The sound wasn’t as bad as it seemed like it could/would be considering that the venue was really small, I did have some problems hearing Eirik at first though, but it seemed like that got fixed throughout the performance. They played a lot of new songs which I’m guessing will be on their upcoming album Next Day Stare, including crowd favorites Halfway To a Star (nothing short of amazing) and Princess Charming - both were played during the two encores at the end of their set. Do check out the boys’ Myspace site for a taste of their alternative rock, and make sure to drop by a show if they ever play near you - they are an incredibly friendly and accessible band, definitely deserving to be known beyond Norway.

Last night I went to see Chris Garneau play at Garage. I’d heard a few songs because of the crazy NYC connections between bands (The Age of Rockets, Saul Macwilliams, Gregory and the Hawk) and then I listened to more, and I was hooked. Besides, the show was free and it seemed like Chris didn’t have a big audience around here, so I was looking forward to a nicely quiet and intimate show.

but that small small gig was so much more than that.
When I got there, I noticed him standing and talking to someone and I promised myself I would quietly sit around and have a beer instead of chatting up every single musician in the room as usual. The stage was tiny and low and we were sitting half a meter away from him - stupidly I have to admit, because the sound was probably a little better in the back. Even though there was some constant background noise of chattering, from up close it felt like time was stopping. I was holding my breath, I was crushed by the tension building up, it was beautiful, it felt real - like a first kiss, the first cherry tree blooming, a summer fling, a heartbreak, your best friend moving away, graduating,.. like a gigantic starlit winter sky.

Chris was whispering thank you’s in-between the songs, but that was all - he was concentrated on his hands on the keyboard, hardly looking at the audience, his amazing voice fluctuating from a low whisper to a high-pitched rhyme filling up the whole space. His music is melancholy at its best. It grabs you when you’re not looking and it doesn’t let you go.

I had my camera in my bag, but was too ashamed to point that big thing right at him, so I quietly pressed the shutter in the most intense moments of one of the last songs. When, in an act of bravado, I requested Baby’s Romance, and he said that he “usually doesn’t play that song without the band”, I made another request - Between the Bars. He played it, and I think it was even slower than his recorded version. I wanted to cry, gasp, clap and hug him at the same time - I could FEEL. It was gorgeous and I never wanted it to stop, but after two more songs it did, and he nodded, and just like this the set was over and the three boys sitting with me were bewildered, and I was amazed. Chris picked up the microphone one last time to say that he’d be happy to talk to anyone after the show, and I did, and the rest is history.

This novel caught me a bit off guard at first. I picked it up on a bookshelf almost randomly, I was attracted by the book spine and the title. I like the way the narrative is built up - even though it goes back and forth in time, it’s not irritating at all like it is in some novels. Once in the story, I immediately ’sided’ with the narrator, but at the same time picked up some things along the way that are important for the final denouement. Overall I think this is a great read - at its core is a moral issue, and the life of Kathy H. in a parallel society..

My comic strip Some Days will be published in every issue of inscribed from this month on. the new issue (Vol. III, Issue 3) came out today, you can download it for free here.
celebrate with me:)

Chris Garneau is coming to BERGEN to play at GARAGE FOR FREE. I cannot believe it. I saw the poster in town earlier today and already messaged him and Andrew (the age of rockets) a thousand times. I am going to buy a gazillion chris garneau t-shirts, all of his EPs, and be broke again. I don’t care. he’s wonderful.

I was listening to the new Audrey album last night. The Fierce and the Longing, which has been out since April 17th in Sweden - the four girls’ home-country - is pure splendor in its genre. Their first full-length (Visible Forms, 2006) was beautiful dark melancholic pop; the Fierce and the Longing adds to this already solid base with some saxophone, beats that are more present than in the first record, a slight hint of electronica that is somewhat reminiscent of Boy Omega, and overall a much more ‘complete’ sound. Each track slides perfectly into one another. I don’t want to praise without constructive criticism, though - I find these girls’ talent wasted on an album that can easily become that a background music. Shoegaze can be a dangerous ground to stand on; it would be nice to have more emphasis on the (at times almost inaudible) voices. Not necessarily louder, but simply with more presence, overlooking the instruments from above, rather than being drowned in them. My favorite tracks so far: Big Ships, Horses are Honest, Northern Lights, Pocket Arms. (the latter for the wonderful collaboration on the vocals)
The girls are on tour until mid-June; sadly not stopping in Norway (this is the third time I miss seeing them live) but playing in Germany, France, Italy. Go see them.

so last night I was listening to Teenage Kicks, the famous famous song by the Undertones, and that made me think of John Peel and of his gravestone (”Teenage dreams, so hard to beat”), and I got reminded of this awesome little record store I went to when I was in St. Andrews, Scotland (just for the record, NO PUN INTENDED, that’s where my little sister lives. not at the record store, but in St. Andrews.) The shop is called UNKNOWN PLEASURES (Joy Division!) and when I bought vinyls there (The Cure and The Sugarcubes) I got them in a plastic bag with a John Peel quote on it. Fuck, when I read it, I was on cloud nine.

I was talking to a guy the other day who was trying to convince me that CDs were better than vinyl because they had no surface noise. And I said - listen mate, life has surface noise.

this songs reminds me of driving through the fjords close to stavanger; all a little hungover, with two hours of sleep behind us and dark shades on a grey day. and we saw llamas…

If someone would have asked me days ago what I thought about Death Cab for Cutie’s brand-new release Narrow Stairs, I would have attacked it, saying it was rubbish. But it grows on you like ivy, it really does. After the big April fool’s by German band Velveteen, there are still fake leaks of this album going around which probably really annoy the band (DcfC, I mean) because of how incredibly mediocre that Velveteen-passing-off-as-Death-Cab album is. But I think there have been way too many posts on the matter since April 1st, so I will just stop here and talk a bit about Narrow Stairs instead.

I really like the new album. I think it’s definitely better than Plans, though it still does not measure up to The Photo Album or Transatlanticism.
Their song Your New Twin Sized Bed is probably one of the most ’surprising’ songs of the album. Before I Will Possess Your Heart, their first single, came out, a band member (Jason, I think) mentioned that Narrow Stairs would be heading in a different direction from previous record Plans. It’s not obvious when hearing the album over and over, but when one really pays attention, songs like Your New Twin Sized Bed really stand out as more experimental - in the sense that instead of keeping to their sound, the band have explored the surroundings. I Will Possess Your Heart is not my favorite song, but i like the long intro, it’s pretty amazing. the bass lines make it so dark and give some more depth to the song, it’s nice. i think it’s a shame that the song gets cut off so much on the radio edit, and I’m glad they decided to keep the long version on the album and that as they said in one of their interviews, they didn’t stick to the first demo of the song, but just jammed and extended the song more and more - musically thinking outside the box.
One favorite of mine is Grapevine Fires; I don’t know why, but when I first heard it I had to think of Styrofoam Plates. Maybe just because there’s a mention of a family-like situation, but something that isn’t straightforward and clear, a bit blurred at the edges. The sliding chorus voices in the background almost become an instrument, a bow string being pulled back again and again. I adore the metaphore in the lyrics; like a new vision of the apocalypse, everything is falling apart, the world rises up in smoke and instead of running, you watch the beauty of things disappearing in the fire.

If I was to compare Narrow Stairs to Plans, I would say that the closing track The Ice is Getting Thinner is the new I Will Follow You Into the Dark - but better. There is nothing terribly special about it - it’s musically one of the more ‘boring’ tracks, however the fact that it is so stripped down to essentials brings Ben’s textwriting forward. I am far from saying that these are the most amazing lyrics he’s ever written, but strangely they manage to find in you the core of that heartbreak you never really forgot, the disaster you couldn’t keep from happening.. the ice you couldn’t keep from breaking.

After the band had made the switch from Barsuk to Atlantic, there seemed to have been a moment of confusion - and the question, “Now What?” and then Plans was released, and it was for me like a wave I couldn’t really ride and it made me lose a bit of faith in this band the way I lost faith in Bright Eyes when Cassadaga came out (but that is another story); truth is, I feel that with this album the boys have gotten back on track.

Earlier today, I received a message from Karl Smith of Sodastream (australian indie-folk band which broke up in 2007) to inform me that he had formed a new project called Lee Memorial. Lee Memorial also includes members from bands The Nation Blue, Ninety-Nine, Gaslight Radio and Paradise Motel. There isn’t much information on the band as of now, and there are only two songs to listen to on their Myspace website; All these things, which reminded me straight away of the Decemberists when I first heard it, and 7 minute planes, which is more reminiscent of Sodastream. I’m quite eager to see (and hear) what will come next. Who knows, they might even pay us Europeans a little visit…