01. Motorpsycho - Heavy Metal Fruit
02. Frøya - My American Dream
03. Bjørn Eidsvåg - De Beste
04. Donkeyboy - Caught in a Life
05. Stage Dolls - Always
06. Shining - Blackjazz
07. Vidar Johnsen & Peter Nordberg - Ild & Vatten
08. Claudia Scott/Casino Steel/Ottar Big Hand Johansen - Honky Tonk Night - The Best
09. Sivert Høyem - Moon Landing
10. John Olav Nilsen & Gjengen - For Sant Til Å Være Godt
11. Pony the Pirate - This is Our Psychopedia!
12. d'sound - Starts and Ends
13. WigWam - Non Stop Rock'N'Roll
14. Dum Dum Boys - Tidsmaskin
15. Jahn Teigen - Teigen - 40 Største Hits
16. Alf Prøysen - De kjente og kjære sangene
17. Jonas Fjeld feat Henning Kvitnes - Den Gamle Veien
18. Torbjørn Egner - Samlede CD-er
19. Lindstrøm and Christabelle - Real Life Is No Cool
20. Kråkesølv - Trådnøsting
Norwegian noise master Lasse Marhaug is doing a West Coast tour in a few weeks with John Wiese and dates can now be found at his website: http://www.lassemarhaug.no/
Dates for Japan in April are posted as well.
The good folks at MIC Norway sent me a big box of CDs earlier this week as part of their "Listen to Norway" music promotion program, so to oblige them I will attempt to do some sort of weekly feature on one of the contents therein. I'm planning on listening to most of it anyway, so why not give it focus? Now as for the types of discs they sent me, there's a good selection of pop, rock, indie and metal stuff that I've either heard before or at least somewhat familiar with, so I decided to jump into the other stuff first. I know some Norwegian jazz, mostly through artists affiliated with or , and we'll get to those in coming weeks, but it's definitely the folk music that intrigued me the most. As regular readers should know by now, I love traditional Scandinavian folk, especially when it's done in contemporary fashion ala Detektivbyrån, but I'm also quite fond of the trad stuff, it's just that I barely know where to start with it so let us consider this to be a mutual exploration. There's a lot of folk music out there and I've listened to a damn lot of Hardanger fiddle this week and while I couldn't begin to tell you the history of the style or anything about the various regional variations, I know what I like and Valkyrien Allstars are a group I definitely can get into. According to the liner notes of their self-titled debut (2007), the trio got their start as the house band at The Valkyrien Restaurant in Oslo though they definitely seemed to have moved beyond that now, having been nominated for a Norwegian Grammy and toured Japan (and released a new album "To måner", which I do not have yet). Musically speaking, they are at their essence, a Hardanger fiddle trio, though they do mix it up by adding a few extra instruments and vocals. But what I like best about them is their energy and enthusiasm, a similar trait I heard in Swedish act Hedningarna, the band that first got me interested in Nordic folk. "Å gjev du batt meg" is one of the group's mellower tracks, but I just love the vocal on it, especially frontwoman Tuva Livsdatter Syvertsen's rough-edged tone. It reminds me of Hajen/Jaw Lesson a bit, in fact they even kinda look similar as far as hairstyle is concerned. Anyhow, it's those little cracks at the edges that make it, and that's why I'm sharing this song today.
Expect more folk discoveries and other new (to me) tunage in weeks to come.
3/17-20 - SXSW, Austin, TX
03/22 - Spaceland, Los Angeles, CA
03/23 - Bottom of the Hill, San Francisco, CA
03/25 - Berbati's Pan, Portland, OR
03/26 - Triple Door, Seattle, WA
03/27 - Media Club, Vancouver, BC
03/30 - 7th Street Entry, Minneapolis, MN
03/31 - Bottom Lounge, Chicago, IL
04/01 - Majestic Theatre, Madison, WI
04/02 - Great Hall, Toronto, ON
04/03 - Il Motore, Montreal, QC
04/04 - TT THe Bears, Cambridge, MA
04/05 - Daniel Street, Milford, CT
04/06 - Kung Fu Necktie, Philadelphia, PA
04/07 - DC9, Washington, DC
04/08 - Le Poisson Rouge, New York, NY
The Tord Gustavsen Ensemble album "Restored, returned", recently nominated for a Spellemannprisen, will get a North American release on February 9 via . The entire group will also be coming over for a couple shows in March:
03/28 - San Francisco Jazz Festival
03/31 - Merkin Concert Hall, NYC
Electronic music site Resident Advisor has posted their top 100 albums of the 00s and the various Scandinavian entries on the list include Røyksopp - Melody A.M. (#83), Vladislav Delay - Multila (#70), Studio - West coast (#67), Björk - Vespertine (#54), The Field - From here we go sublime (#29), Trentemøller - The last resort (#28), Fever Ray - s/t (#24), Luomo - Vocalcity (#13) and The Knife - Silent shout (#9). Read more: http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1144
The Pink Robots have won the Urørt 2010 unsigned band competition which I guess makes them the hottest up-and-coming Norwegian act right now. Listen at myspace: http://www.myspace.com/thepinkrobotsnorway