Here we go all Norwegian once more, with Nils of Ella Guru marking the weirdest spots on the mellifluous map of Norway. Hurrah. Here’s the podcast feed.
お楽しみに！ Hope you enjoy.. Don’t let that first track scare you off. And do read the explanation for the selections, you get brownie points for that too.

tracklist

Fra Lippo Lippi  is best known for having been famous in the Philippines. But before they started making dreary eighties popmusic (though their hit single ‘Shouldn’t have to be like that’, is quite catchy), they were portrayed as beeing a norwegian Joy Divison…heh…at least it sounds as if they really tried to be, hard.

On this album, ‘in silence’, from 1981, they sound more like New Orders first album ‘Movement’ though. I think they made some EP’s before this (I ain’t got an internet connection at my place, so I can’t check up any facts, unfortunately).

site

Domestic Duck – super cool

Norways best ‘krautrock’ band perhaps…I don’t really know anything about them…this guy up in the fourth floor in my building knows them though, and apparantly they don’t play much…too bad…

myspace

Motorpsycho – wearing your smell

When you go to a indie-rock gig with a local band in trondheim, you can usually classify them by referring to a particular Motorpsycho-album. Their status as Norways greatest indieband is undisputed, at least here in Trondheim. I really can’t think of any others worth mentioning. Choosing one song from their vast and varied back-catalogue is one very ungrateful task…I chose this one…I don’t know why…

myspace

Manna – Vi vil ikke ha mer krig

‘People who don’t like reggae are essentially bad people, I don’t trust them’ – I said that, or so I’m told…I don’t know if I can stand for it though, I know of at least two people I like who don’t like reggae-music…and just recently my dad got into dub, at the age of 54.

myspace

G.O.D.S. – Trondheim

These guys can get anyone from six to sixty and far beyond to dance. masters of crowd control. this song, a hommage to the town we live in; ’sun, summer and snow, that’s trondheim you know’…or something like that.

myspace

Dog & Sky – Hammer

this was the first band I really dug after moving in to town…ah, imagining Matt, singer of D&S, in a slightly oversized suit making a tiny jump clinching his eyes yelling kiss me!, man, I could’ve kissed him right there…but that was another song, at some other gig, some other time… according to the cover booklet the singer of the band ‘det glade vanvidd’ plays hammer in this song, but I’ve not been able to dechipher where. I could watch the drummer for hours, love her style, and she’s so good, I almost find it  provoking(I’m a drummer myself), she must be a jazzer or something, wich reminds me of…

PELbO – the star

…Pelbo, whom someone somehow have given the honour of havin’ made tuba sexy…that’s absurd, when was tuba not sexy? all bass is sexy. If someone who knows the band by any chance hear this mixtape, they might wonder what happened to the final part…well, I’ll tell you what. It sucks. I hate it. So I cut it. I’m sorry guys. Everything you her on the recordings the also do live, looping of vocals, putting on effects and such.

myspace

Chilsmissebarna – Gregor Samsa ain’t dead

heh…me and the percussionist in my band once took initiative for a spontanious rehersal, but noone else were available, and also we didn’t have keys to the bandroom, so we went back to my place, shared one pathetic bottle of bear, and started making sounds with whatever stuff we could find in my room, a vacuum cleaner, a guitar flight case, a recordplayer etc. That was the beginning of Chillsmissebarna. The band who managed to chase just about every participant of a friends birthdayparty arranged at my place, playing on vacuumcleaner, casserolles and guitarfeedback, everyone fleed into the kitchen or to the toilets…at the other of the two gigs of our career we started fighting out of frustration of the fact that none of us knew what we were doing, or maybe because we were bored, rolling around in the dirt, einar tore my shirt…this australian guy with a barbercue said he really liked it…

Babi Jar – Babi Jar

a friend of mine popped in, asked me ‘what are you doing?’, I told him what I was doing, ‘oh’, he said, ‘I’ve got some stuff you could use’, and brought me a usb-stick with music. this one was the only one to sneak through the needle’s eye this time.

120 days – come out (come down, fade out, be gone)

so hip it almost makes you sick, but that doesn’t keep them from being good, does it? I don’t know. I have a disease that makes me unable to listen to music, at least modern music, without immideatly coming up with a bunch of references, whom the band I’m listening to never really can live up to, in my eyes. It sucks really, prevents me of liking a lot of music that’s probably not really to bad, it’s just that this other band from the sixties or seventies or eighties, was better…there’s always some other band…

myspace

123 – Graveyard paradise

but let’s forget all that and enjoy this sixties beauty. Dylanesque you say? Yeah…but please don’t ruin it by reminding me. Actually the sickness is only contaminous for music made after y2000. This is ripped from an original seven inch my aunt gave me, real worn…listen to the scratching…

If you chance upon free music worth that click, these days that means a lot. Doesn’t your heart flutter like a fairy-winged teacup when you do? So that’s why I’m grateful for one sir who goes by the name of Illingsworth, member and producer of Detroit CYDI (Can You Dig It). The album, The Rhyming Dictionary, is a split-production affair, with half of the tracks rounded off by Erik L- who previously worked with Frank N Dank. This really is good, people. Bristling beats, and rhymes to compete with advanced SAT vocab

(Had a hard time picking out) two tracks:

Detroit CYDI – Based On a True Story (p Illingsworth) mp3

Detroit CYDI – Front Back (Ft Neens, p Erik L) mp3

So once more, the breeze of links goes as follows:

http://illingsworks.bandcamp.com

http://detroitcydi.bandcamp.com >> Download the album

It’s like I’m sending y’all a text! But with links and music and stuff.

My Tweets

Check out Curumin’s latest album, “Japan Pop Show”. Straight from Brasil.

Oh and look, Tommy Guerrero’s way up there on his myspace friends list. Says he’s got a “new wrekid” on the way, and as much as I can’t say I can’t wait to check it out, I just know I’ll like it.

I see now I’d uploaded a couple of mp3’s about two months ago (!) and I’m inclined to believe a switch was pulled – either the one to the Internet, or the one in my head. Anyway those who wanted to know, know anyway; for the rest, I’m talking bout Mount Kimbie.

Don’t tell me this is dubstep, it’s better. It’s fresh as larvae. Obviously, artists re-arrange the borders between genres and sub-genres all the time. Kai and Dom of Mount Kimbie have some obvious influences – including “girlfriends” and “stupidity” – says so right on their myspace. Still -  they manage to wipe the slate (almost) clean for the common music purveyor, i.e. not that interested in any particular genre. Therein it’s a delightful listening experience. The barely-there-it-melts-into-your-ears “William” and the only slightly eerie “Taps” are here to make you want more (erm, though the EP has but four tracks):

• Mount Kimbie – William mp3
• Mount Kimbie – Taps mp3

Find out where to buy the EP.

While lately I have been listening and watching a lot of Shiina Ringo performances, I haven’t yet written anything about the Japanese singer who got swept into mainstream music. I will though, because a lot of people might like her but just haven’t been properly exposed. Here’s one of my favourite videos, for ハツコイ娼女.

Choosing a recording location different than the ol’ studio usually makes for a lot of fun.
Rasputina is a band that sets itself apart from the rest of the gothic crowd- simply because I listen to them, and I find it an enjoyable experience.

Their latest album, Melora a la Basilica, recorded in a glue factory with the acoustics of a church, turns lead vocalist Melora’s voice into a receptacle of greater forces. Half covers and half original material, but in the end all Rasputina. Wicked, wicked that Dickie.

Clowns mp3
Wicked Dickie mp3

Shop

Which brings me to the fantastic label of German origin, Melting Pot Music, hence the lyrics in German – one of the foreigner of foreign languages, for me.

So, got an MPM newsletter, saw a pretty girl. And where there’s a pretty girl there’s potential.

I’m trying so hard not to go to Erykah Badu categorisms. My flair was right about Fleur Earth though.
In solo ventures as well as with Fleur Earth Experiment aka FEX, she is nothing but straight-up smooth.

It happens that the internet is pregnant with so much information you find only the crap side of things, but looking up her band, and more specifically Fleur Earth, there’s a few places brimful with content (read: mp3s).

Shame on me for only just discovering iDEOLOGY, the net label where some of Fleur’s previous work still resides (archive here).
Take “In Liebe, Fleur” (mp3). The modulations on that song remind me just enough of recent Cinematic Orchestra to incorporate the rhymes into the general flow. Music is surprisingly more serene when you don’t know what the hell they’re going on about. I can only guess from the title of the track. Back to a mythical age in song then; you have to be reminded once in a while how language can limit – instead of carry – meaning; let’s go beyond that, shall we?

Unbegreiflich The Ins RMX snippet (mp3)

Who could blame you for wanting the vinyl.

Which was a bit disappointing for me, since I couldn’t include The Boredoms’ “Super Roots 9″, otherwise known as three-quarters of an hour of head-spinning noise – from choir to chaos. Not a moment of peace on this live track. So, listen to it for yourself.

About the podcast – I’m not apologising for the Black Kids track. I liked the album, it’s pop and it’s fun.

This year had a lot of good, and a lot of ugly. Apparently dubstep ruled on a whole different level. So much so that all Boomkat newsletters were dripping with the fact. I never got that much into it.

I’ve been listening to some re-releases, like Linda Perhacs‘ “Parallelograms” or David Axelrod’s “Seriously Deep“. Rediscovered a bunch of other artists too. For me – maybe it’s too early to dig 2008, and in 20 years I’ll catch up with what really happened this year.

So.. good albums. The natural choices that are just there, on every list most likely – Portishead’s “Third” and Flying Lotus’ “Los Angeles”, Jamie Lidell’s “Jim”; then my natural choices – Mr Scruff’s “Ninja Tuna”, Erykah Badu’s “New Amerykah Part One (4th World War)” and lastly the rare, precious ones that you need no pause or rewind for – Rockettothesky’s “Medea”, The Present’s “World I See”. That scratches the surface of what follows -

Tracklist

Ruth Theodore – Murray’s Wives (download her whole album from Jamendo)
Rainbow Arabia – Tiny Tiny Man

Crystal Stilts – Crystal Stilts
Buddy Peace - Slow Gang Funeral

Portishead – Hunter

Linda Perhacs – Parallelograms
Flying Lotus – Auntie’s Lock/Infinitum (feat Laura Darlington)
Erykah Badu – Me
Santogold – Lights Out (Diplo’s Panda Bear Mix)

Black Kids – I’m Making Eyes At You

Gang Gang Dance – House Jam

Black Milk - Give The Drummer Sum

Mr. Scruff - Donkey Ride

Deerhunter – Moon Witch Cartridge

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba – Bassekou

Juana Molina – Quién? (Suite)

Brightblack Morning Light - Oppressions Each

Menahan Street Band - Home Again!

The Bamboos – King Of The Rodeo featuring Megan Washington

The Present - Africanized Beatniks

Animal Collective -No More Runnin

You’ll have to download the track from mediafire until the podcast host is up and running again

if you please – .m4a, 80 MB

And yes, the last track is from Animal Collective’s imminent 2009 release. On the other hand, Bassekou Kouyate is 2007, but since it was 2008 when I heard him first, let me have that one.

One of those artists’ albums – at least – would do any record collection good. Of course there are tracks I haven’t included probably due to their ubiquity, or because they just need to be listened to by themselves or in the context of the album. Closer to that goal – I also made a zip file of the songs which you can download here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Well, that was that. Enjoy.

A couple of weeks ago I stumbled onto Rainbow Arabia, and now they popped in my mail.

Like many before them, they grab onto “the Eastern influence” and.. you know, turn it into something new. I’m not going farther back in time than Madlib, whose Beat Konducta in India should not be missed. If you want to chill, pick up Madlib’s nuggets.

For the more punk-minded, Rainbow Arabia go off the beaten path and frolic with the African, the Eastern, the sadness, the gladness in a dizzy genre-dismantling dance.

Omar K mp3

buy

If I never mentioned Tokumaru… my bad. He was definitely on one of the podcasts. But here he is talking about the possibility of green rain.

Not bad – you get two freebies, the debut album and a mixtape, plus a preview of the new album, Back off Man, I’m a Scientist, on kidkanevil’s myspace. Spicy beats in there I reckon.

Here’s the appetizers, plus the main downloads du jour:

kidkanevil – Ketto Revisited ft Bonobo (mp3) off Back Off Man, I’m a Scientist

kidkanevil – Def Cert feat Jehst & Sir Smurf Lil’ (mp3) off Problems and Solutions

Back off Man, I’m a Mixtape - rapidshare link

Problems & Solutions album – zip file, rapidshare link

Don’t forget to check out his blog. Unsurprisingly, a Reckoner remix in there. A really good one though.

The Blind I is right. Dublab your soul right NOW!

dublab / dubstream – live broadcast

10am – 12pm :
plandru
matthewdavid

12pm – 6pm :
Exile
Johnson and Johnson
Hudson Mohawke
Mike Slott
Rustie

via Blind I | DUBLAB – THE ILLEST SCHITT ON THE NET RIGHT NOW | Blind I

Palms Out Sounds have helped none with my current video frenzy.

After the subtle FlyLo fornication one, this Starfucker video is just a bit of skimpy pop that I dig. Get the noodle?

Starfucker – Laadeedaa mp3

Here we are gathered today to dispel any myths or stereotypes about Norwegian music (weird? yes; all heavy metal? no). A great write-up from a music fan that knows the deal.

—

hmm…where to start? ah…right, the beginning.

DePress

was along with The Aller Værste, whom will be discussed further down, just about the only norwegian post-punk band who was found worthy to be mentioned on norwegian televisions “the history of norwegian rock” series a few years back. Many great bands weren’t. Well well let’s not hold that against them, all they did to make what is widely acclaimed to be one of the best, if not the best norwegian album ever. It took a Polish immigrant to do it though. Depress founder and fourfingered singer/bassplayer Andrej Njebb came to Norway sometime in the seventies, and was fascinated by norwegian poetry and art, and not to mention the norwegian gastronomic speciality of fish-pudding. “Bo jo cie kochom”, that’s polish, most of DePress’s material was, come from their debut album “block to block” (1981), and I think it’s based on a Polish shepardssong. Both this and their next album, wich is might even better, was produced by the British John Leckie who had previously worked with Plastic ono band and pink floyd, and would eventually produce great acts as the fall and public image as well as Radiohead and Stone Roses. Andrej Njebb would also go on to do great things after DePress disintegrated, we’ll get back to him later…

01 Bo jo cie kochom

Alle Tiders Duster

I love this band, best norwegian band ever, best norwegian album ever, and practically unknown of course… I could have written about every track on their brilliant “rødt lys” album (1982), I guess I chose “Jeg vet du vet” because it sounds somewhat like a hit…me and a friend of mine used to play this track all the time when we were dj-ing at a local club, desperately trying to attract peoples attention towards this gem of a band…noone cared though, constantly nagging us for the latest Britney-single, wich we didn’t have, and the bartender yelled at us and accused us of scaring away her customers when we played “Frankie Teardrop” by Suicide, that song is pure meanness…anyway, we don’t DJ there enymore, but I often play Alle Tiders Duster loud, with my streetside window open, so that all the world can hear… “is it you who play that fucking music so fucking loud!” my landlord said, “eh…well…does it bother you?” I replied, “just turn it down dammit!”…I’m thinking of moving out soon…

Lyrics: I know you know (as in “I know that you know”)
I know you know
I know you know
I know you know I can see you under the spotlights
I know you know I can see you under the spotlights
will you da da da da da da da da dance with me?
do you wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna go home with me?

I know you know what’s the question
I know you know, you can read my thoughts
I know you know I can see you under the spotlights
will you da da da da da da da da dance with me?
do you wanna wanna wanna wanna wanna go home with me?

I know you know etc.

Compared to the rest of the stuff on the album, this is quite joyful actually.

02 Jeg vet du vet

Munch

Norways biggest Industrial band, that is, they weren’t big, there’s just never been anyone bigger… their music was heavily inspired by the haunting pictures by the slightly more famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (at least us norwegians like to think he’s famous…he is, isn’t he?)… This song is of one of their latest albums, from 1993.

03 Goldengun

Morten Munk

is a pseudonym of Lister, who also played in Det elekriske kjøkken. “Jetzt….den ganzten tag” is from his only release under this name, the “ta et vink” single from 1981.
The lyrics goes something like this:
Take some advice
kill a butterfly
use the hard to destroy the beautiful
smile to everyone
smile to everyone
kill yourself
make a hole
read a sign
shoot the target

04 Jetzt… den ganzten tag

Sjølmord

(that translates Suicide), was a classic punkband from Trondheim…released only one single, “Holocaust/supertankerne kommer”, the b-side was in danish, this one is in German, I don’t know what they’re singing about, can someone please tell me?

05 Holocaust

Liliedugg

Another great Trondheimband. I don’t know why I chose this track, it’s not by far their best one. Liliedugg was, along with Wannskrækk, the leading band of Trondheims punkscene. Wannskrekk changed their name into DumDumboys, after an IggyPop song, and eventually became Norways biggest rock band, they still are, and they still suck. Liliedugg though, had to much integrety. For their comeback last year, (the sole reason I bought tickets to the Storaas-festival…to drunk out of my mind to actually remember anything of the show though…), they claimed to had been 25 years ahead of their time back in 1981, and now (that is,then) , in 2007 they were still 25 years ahead of their time…well actually, already back in the eighties, they were perhaps a couple of years behind bands like Killing Joke an Birthday Party, but what the hell, you just have to love their attitude…(another fun anecdote from the storaasfestival, having an artist-access pass, I got to meet my heroes backstage…I told them they sucked, tried to steal some whiskey and was eventually thrown out…what a great night that was…)

06 Helpin’ Hand

N.S.G.A.

Norways best afrobeatband, and one of few contemporary bands on this compilation. If Fela Kuti had grown up on a tiny Island in Lofoten…

07 Northern Star Groove Alliance

Adjagás

Another contemporary band. They sing in the Sapmi language. Some british musicmagazine, can’t remember wich one, said about their last album that this is the most exciting band in scandinavia at the present. And exciting they certainly are.

08 Likhulas

Det elektriske kjøkken

This is Lister again, the guy is a genius I say, although he can’t take all the praise for this one, Det elektriske kjøkken was a band, not a solo project, started as something of a punkband, ended up like…this…
This instrumental is taken from their second and final album “elefantene kommer” (”the elephants are coming”) from 82 I think. A real gem this album is. The band disintegrated because the drummer rather wanted to be a farmer…

09 PILastral

Ella Guru

well…what can I say? This is my band… Some say were destroying rock music, others say we’re resurrecting it, a local journalist claimed we’d just might be the future of norwegian music, some other guy on the internet said we make him embarresed of being from Trondheim…all this we think is great. Am not very pleased with this recording though.

10 perketiperk

Spring Collection

The only contemporary Trondheimband I feel any…what to say…association with. Together we make a scene. Just the two of us.
I’m not saying all other band in town suck…they’re just irrelevant. This song they claim is a cover version of Bruce Springsteen “Fire”, haven’t heard the original, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t share any resemblence at all, except for the lyrics…

11 Fire

The Aller Værste

The other great norwegian postpunk classic. Released two great albums in 80-81. This song is from the first, “Materialtretthet”, also an landmark album in norwegian rock, one that is actually widely acclaimed to be so.

The guy who wrote the lyrics for this song had a special talent for playing with words, which is hard to capture in a translation, this does not do the song any justice:

Disco-cud: (you know what cud is? when cows throw up their half-digested food and eat it again…)

There’s someone who make explosions
there’s some who monitor telephones
someone believe in strong men
some collects guns and bullets
they gather up on the boulevard
they volunteer for the national-guard

They say we have the right to our own lives
but everything we do is filed in the archives
they punch us in on computers
and we end up as supervised rabbits
at the disco we grow even stupider
and we get a number with the other numbers

ref:
while you’re just sitting where you are
sitting and waiting for the weather to get better
pack yourself in in your new clothes
looking through the window with lazy eyes
chewing disco-cud

(and then the horns kick in…brilliant!)

You read your horoscopes, believe in star-mystics
you don’t worry ’bout nuclear-physics
but soon they’ll put us into a brain-clinic
and research our brains with computer-technics

12 Diskodrøv

Mt-Six

If you go to concerts at UFFA, the local punkhangout (an old squatted kindergarten, the only place you can smoke indoors, were kids can get drunk, and you can buy cheap vegetarian food made by guys with mohawks and other seedy looking people, like the percussionist in my band…), there is a pretty good chance you’re gonna hear another boring punk/hardcore/grinde/metal band, but every once in a while a real gem shows up.

13 Big band six elvis is dead

The Cut

Oslo is really no good, one example is that their two best post punk/new wave bands in the eighties both were fronted by foreigners, this time it was a german, Volker Zibell. Great track this, “atmospheres”, from the “shadows talk” album of 1981, also produced by John Leckie. The bassplayer, Torgrim Eggen, is now a quite popular and acclaimed novelist and former journalist. He was a guest at a talkshow/comedyshow a little while ago, where they showed a videoclip from his days as a “rock star”…he found that a bit emberrasing, people who remember the eighties tend to be embarresed by them it seems, anyway, he has nothing to be ashamed of, great bassplayer, great band, don’t know anything about his writing though…

14 Atmospheres

Lister

I’ve already talked about Lister, haven’t I? Well, this is him going solo this time. From the late eighties I think. Beautiful song, beautiful album, makes the world seem a bit more beautiful…though sad…

15 Valium Baby

Det glade vanvidd

Legendary Trondheimband from the eighties, despised by most, loved by a few. Lunatics they were, hitting on flagpoles, shouting nonsense, putting it all on tape…the singer is now a full time politician for the green party, member of the city council and head of Trondheims Cultural commity. After an Ella Guru gig I asked him when we would have the chance to play with them on a DGV reunion gig. Probably never, he said. It’s a shame. Perhaps he fears it would damage his political career…

16 lovsong

Holy Toy

And we’re right back where we started, or that is, where the beginning ended.
Andrej Njebb is a man of many talents, and has also made a name for himself through various forms of art,his most famous performances was to hang himself upside down from a crane outside the norwegian parliamen-tbuilding. When he weren’t doing those sort of things, he would make music. And if it wasn’t with DePress, he’d be putting music to the poetry of norwegian poets Tor Jonson and Olav H. Hauge…or he’d be doing Holy Toy. Munch might have been the most influentual industrial/avantgarde group in norway, but who the hell cares. If you ask me, Holy Toy is probably only second to Alle Tiders Duster when it comes to greatest norwegian bands of all times. Although, on the sort of polls made by newspapers and magazines, none of them are even mentioned, as with many of the other bands on this compilation…ah…fuck that…

17 Fresh News-Larve

-Nils-

• Ella Guru myspace

☂　You can download the zip file of the compilation here

a compilation by Nils

photo credits

More Norwegian music resources:

Nö MUSIC

urørt and urørt – a user’s guide

Discover Norwegian music (blog)

Tagged: Adjagás, alle tiders duster, DePress, Det elektriske kjøkken, Det glade vanvidd, Ella Guru, Holy Toy, Liliedugg, Lister, mixtape, Morten Munk, Mt-Six, Munch, N.S.G.A., norway, Spring Collection, The Aller Værste!, The Cut ]]> http://eashfa.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/ghost-writer-nils-of-ella-guru-on-good-norwegian-music/feed/ 6 Linda depress norway band liliedugg_01 adjagas ella guru norway eashfa the_aller_vaerste_tav_03 holy_toy_02 i-hate-black-metal-compilation-norsk-1