17 Feb 2011 — Tonje Thilesen
It was the name that caught my interest at first:
Fivrel. It flows with such a soft consistency in my mouth, and its sugar-sweet pronunciation (in Norwegian, that is) makes me recall long forgotten childhood memories – and I feel like saying the name out loud again and again and again.
The music is just as crispy and pure as the name, too, sometimes suddenly making unexpected twists and turns, to be compared with the works of the electronic genius himself,
Kim Hiorthøy. The Oslo-based
Jostein Fretland has has been putting out his tunes on
Urørt since last fall, recently also releasing his first very first EP as
Fivrel (which also dropped in my mailbox the other day), a beautiful piece of ambient-meets-electronic that melts its way into your ears, leaving dreamscape-y footprints wherever the sound draws its way. However, I'm not saying that the Fivrel EP is perfect in every way, cause even a butterfly can get tired of fluttering its wings for a while — but all in all
Fivrel provides us with a pure and honest beauty which is rare to be found around here.
As for the name: I guess that I too, as every curious child, used to go hunting for butterflies when I was a kid. Not for the colourful and more eyecatching kinds however, but rather the tiny, ashen ones that you can find in old wooden houses, often desperately fluttering with its fragile wings in the afternoon sun behind a wall of glass, whirling up dust from the window ledge – and no, I'm not talking about moths. In
nynorsk, these tiny, "nameless" creatures go by the name 'fivreld', thereby the moniker of Jostein Fretland,
Fivrel. Then again you can ask yourself why someone would name an electronic/ambient music project after a grey butterfly. Well, to quote Jostein's girlfriend Mariell:
'at least they fly towards the light'. And so they do.
Order the EP via his
website, or download some free tracks over at his
Urørt page.
Fivrel - Stig!
Fivrel - Fyrste Rom
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Their Only Dreams is the (before mentioned) recording project of LA's David Lyudmirsky, and his very own yet very SoCal take on psych-pop is still exciting us on this side of the Atlantic. Lyudmirsky has just released his new EP Pop Tart, and the new tunes show a leap forward in terms of actual songwriting - he is obviously starting to channel his immense talent into confident craftsmanship. Together with a delightful dash of Californian humor and some City of Angels self-mockery, the twisting and plucking tunes on Pop Tart are among the best in its genre to come out in the last couple of months. Highly recommended.
Lyudmirsky's whole stuff, including his awesome first full-length Darling In Dream Dimension, is available for free on his bandcamp.
Their Only Dreams - Working Stiff
Their Only Dreams - Adult Contemporary Man
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