Nordic music
Kieron Tyler
Tulegur Gangzi describes his music as “Mongolian grunge” and “nomad rock.” Thrashing at an acoustic guitar, the Inner-Mongolian troubadour is singing in the khomei style, the throat-singing which sounds part-gargle, drone and chant – or all three at once. His approach to the guitar is just as remarkable. With his left hand sliding up and down the neck, the open tunings he employs set up a sibilant plangence nodding to the trancey folk-rock of Stormcock Roy Harper. The slashing, descending guitar which kicks in near the close of Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” appears to also be in Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
An expectant audience isn’t the only thing which can be seen from the main stage of Helsinki’s Flow Festival. Janelle Monáe, Manic Street Preachers and OutKast are also greeted by a gas holder looming ominously before them. This brooding remnant of the festival site’s former use as a gasworks brings a unique flavour to Flow. The setting and site are unlike that of any other festival.In its 11th year, Flow 2014 balanced big international names against edgier artists and Finns of all shapes, sizes and styles. With great food, a kid-friendly third day and art installations, the festival is a Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
“Tonight, in the Faroe Islands, we’re going to find the greatest dancer.” It’s not an exhortation which often rings out. It could even be a first time The Faroes have been invited to demonstrate their disco prowess. Sister Sledge are on stage and about to launch into their 1979 Chic-produced world-wide smash “He’s the Greatest Dancer”.This, though, is 2014 and the Sledge sisters are playing G! Festival, the Faroes’ annual celebration of their own culture and popular music. The other Nordic countries are here too – bands from Denmark, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are playing.But G! is about the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Denmark’s Broken Twin take the lead in the latest of theartsdesk’s regular round-ups of the new music coming in from Scandinavia. Debut album May is melancholy. Minimally arranged, with lyrics addressing the pain brought by the passing of time, bleakness in the form of metaphorical references to weather and what happens after death, this is an affecting album. The sense of a lonely despair is reinforced by the defeated, distant voice of Majke Voss Romme – who is Broken Twin. May might fit clichés about Nordic chill, but the album draws from and sits proudly alongside landmark works of the Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
At last night’s Eurovision Song Contest, host country Denmark submitted “Cliché Love Song”, a weedy Bruno Mars-a-like designed to ensure they did not win for a second year running. It came ninth. While understandable that Danish national broadcaster DR would try to duck the expense of staging the extravaganza in Copenhagen again in 2015, they could have displayed some imagination by choosing an entrant that was certainly not a winner but had some worth. Instead of Basim wth his paper-thin “Cliché Love Song”, Aalborg’s Get Your Gun would have made a grand choice to showcase Denmark in fine Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
A mournful voice sings “even though it hurts, even though it scars, love me when it storms, love me when I fall” over a strummed acoustic guitar which shares the lyrics dolefulness. As the centrepiece of her set last night, Lykke Li’s delivery of her new album I Never Learn’s “Love Me Like I'm Not Made of Stone” asked a lot from the audience at her first London show for three years. With the familiar came the new. With the upbeat came the sorrowful. And lots of it.Although the Swedish, LA-dwelling singer-songwriter has shifted mountains of records in the wake of her last album, 2011’s globe- Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The on-stage collaboration between north-Norwegian ambient maestro Biosphere and his similarly inclined but sonically darker countryman Deathprod was a one off. At Oslo’s Tape to Zero festival, Biosphere and Deathprod bought the you-had-to-be-there moment. The pair had collaborated for a remix project of composer Arne Nordheim in 1998, but this was about new music.The two days weren’t just about this unique partnership. Tape to Zero united Susanna Wallumrød (who performs as Susanna and was formerly half of Susanna & the Magical Orchestra) and off-kilter Dutch singer-songwriter Jessica Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Finland’s Jaakko Eino Kalevi, who played his debut British show last November, heads up theartsdesk’s latest regular round-up of what’s come down from the north. A spellbinding display of individualistic pop, the London outing coincided with the arrival of his first non-Finnish release, the Dreamzone EP.Deadpan and stood at his ancient synth, he was accompanied by a drummer and sax player. The rhythms rarely deviated from the beat of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”. The hollow sax evoked Chris Rea or the white-bread soul-pop of Hall & Oates. The whole enfolded like dub. Kalevi barely Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Kraftwerk closing a festival is a big deal. It’s an even bigger honour when the seminal German outfit reconfigure their set to acknowledge where they’re playing. Last Sunday, Kraftwerk performed the rarely heard “Airwaves”, from 1975’s Radioactivity album, within the honeycomb-windowed Harpa concert hall. They were paying tribute to Iceland Airwaves, the remarkable festival which was drawing to a closeOver five days, Kraftwerk were joined in capital city Reykjavík by more international names for the festival – John Grant, Anna von Hausswolff, Midlake, Savages, Omar Souleyman, Villagers. And Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Norway is currently attracting an uncommon degree of attention due to the absurd “The Fox (What Does the Fox Say?)” by Ylvis, the comedy duo Bård and Vegard Ylvisåker. The country’s mainstream music hasn’t been this newsworthy since a-ha conquered the world in 1985. After 150 million YouTube hits for “The Fox”, the figure is still rising.The Ylvisåker brothers host the television chat show I kveld med Ylvis and the catchy musical novelty was meant for a sketch in the programme. It was intended to be the worst song ever. Ylvis had, though, roped in Stargate, the New York-based Norwegian Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Madness: Take it or Leave itIn 1981, Madness followed The Beatles, Slade and The Sex Pistols by playing versions of themselves in a film. Take it or Leave it is no masterpiece, but it is hugely entertaining. At the time, surprisingly, a soundtrack album wasn’t issued and its belated appearance on CD plugs a gap in the story of Madness.This smart, two-disc set teams a DVD of the film with the shelved album, for which a master tape was assembled. The CD is not a live set though, collecting the rough-and-ready performances seen in the film, but assembles familiar studio recordings and Fats Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Four days in Norway’s capital attending Folkelarm, the festival of Nordic folk music, raises the perennial and always knotty question of how far music can move beyond the traditional yet still be labelled as folk? With the charming and reassuringly old-fashioned accordion- and string-driven dance band the P. A. Røstads Orkester there’s no such problem. But Slagr, despite the presence of a rootsy Hardanger fiddle in their ranks, are closer to the drone of La Monte Young’s eternal music and could never liven up a Saturday night dance. Straying even further from the source, Sami singer Elin Read more ...