Also see bylarm day 1 or bylarm day 3 (coming soon)
On my schedule, the second day of the Bylarm festival in Oslo (Friday February 18th) was indeed the most hectic one, also considering the fact that plenty of the acts clashed on the festival programme, for instance Treefight For Sunlight with The Concretes and French Films or Sleep Party People with Kommode to mention a few. Even though I didn't get to see their whole live set, I at least got to see them all, plus one of Treefight for Sunglight's extra shows on Saturday (February 19th). All though a big percentage of the venues won't let 'underage' people get in due to ID restrictions of 20 or 24 years at most, it still didn't stop me from being using my creativity to get into the strictest venues. ...However, more about that some other time: here are our personal highlights (and not so highlights) from Bylarm day 2.
Starting out with the fantastic Team Me on Thursday last week, I had quite been looking forward to see the rising stars of the beach poppy Young Dreams, whom recently also signed their newest split release to our good friends at Beachtapes, together with the folks of the Norwegian label Télle Records. Having a handful of really strong material already, I cannot deny having high expectations to their performance, as I've heard they're supposed to be amazing live, all though I wouldn't necessarily use the word 'amazing' for their performance at Samfunnssalen on Friday. Indeed being a huge band of none other than 12 (!) band members, you would nearly assume they'd be fit for a bigger stage, but in fact Young Dreams is one of those bands who is best suited playing in a smaller room, just to get that intimate, bedroom pop feel that their music provides. But by all means, it wasn't a bad show. I was just saying.
No-one really knew who Denmark's Frisk Frugt were when their name was announced on this year's festival programme, and as they also were one of the few nominees to the Nordic Music Prize (a long with names such as Robyn, Jónsi and Susanne Sundfør) even more eyebrows were raised, and to be honest, mine too. One moment they were playing all catastrophic and noisy, and the other they would lean towards a whole different genre, almost like blending African beats with bollywood vocals, slowly fading away and turn into a more harmonic lo-fi production. Indeed, it is not easy to understand these guys, or more correctly the solo project of Anders Lauge Melgaard. I'm usually very open towards experimental and art music, but as the weird-sounding album itself, "Dansktoppen Møder Burkina Faso i det Himmelblå Rum Hvor Solen Bor, Suite" didn't sound a thing like what I heard them play live, it's also a little hard to come to a conclusion towards the show.
Starting out with a 20-minute long experimental track which started in the small by using objects such as toys and smaller instruments to create certain sounds (which I quite enjoyed, at least), it suddenly changed into off-beat drumming with a heavy, brain shaking bass in the background, sounding pretty randomly put together with no particular intention in mind. The fact that Anders kept losing his instruments slash objects on stage made the performance look even more ridiculous, and even more confusing when ending the half an hour long live set with an absurd, however beautiful acoustic track which he later acclaimed ironically or not that he he had "won the Nordic Music prize if this track was on my album". Very well, maybe it's just me and my lack of ability to see the 'art' in the music of Frisk Frugt, but to be honest, I can always live with that. This track below is quite lovely however.
Frisk Frugt - Ensemble
On my way to see The Concretes at Blå, I suddenly stumbled accross French Films (FIN) playing at a club nearby, however originally having planned to see them the upcoming day. Following my gut feeling, I decided to see a bit of their set anyway, and it definitely made me not regretting missing the first bit of The Concretes. First seeming to have an awkwardly 'cool' image when playing live (they were almost all wearing sunglasses in the barely lit basement) French Films proved to be a lot more energetic and fun than what I had expected, turning the tiny, but fully packed place into a dance party with their incredibly catchy indie/surf rock.
French Films - Take You With Me
Ever since I tuned in the beautiful track Good Evening by Sweden's The Concretes and superb remixes from both Blackbird Blackbird and Niva, I have been wanting to see them live for ages. Coming slightly late to their show unfortunately, it seemed like I missed them playing that particular track, however followed up by a bunch of other lovely ones from their 2010 album WYWH, slowly but finally making the audience dance along to their carefree indie pop tunes once sung so beautifully by Victoria Bergsman in their more noisier days (before she left to work on her solo project Taken By Trees) — but now as most of you may know replaced by another beauty, Lisa Milberg.
The Concretes - Good EveningThe Concretes - Good Evening (Blackbird Blackbird remix)
The electronic art pop duo Thelma & Clyde was not surprisingly, a great fun to watch, a lot of it because of Hanne Kolstø's ability to seduce everyone with her unique voice and elegant moves, as she didn't need a spotlight to show the audience who was the centre of attention — not being a negative thing, however. The sound could always have been better I guess, but with the tiny venue taken into consideration, it was easy to forget about the shitty sound and just dance along to the heavy bass and funky beats. Once again the half an hour long show proved to be far too short for a show of this caliber, and Thelma & Clyde's set, as well as Lovecult on Saturday, were both perfect examples to this.
Thelma & Clyde - Chess
For us all-eating music junkies, it is nearly impossible to have gone through 2010 without hearing of the Swedish electronic pop trio Museum Of Bellas Artes, which was as far as I recall, a pretty big blog hype last year having premiers on both Stereogum or music blog daddy Gorilla vs. Bear, but indeed with a good reason. After fighting a bit with the bouncer who finally allowed me to get in on the condition of keeping my credit card for my barely 20-minute long stay (what a weird country we live in), I still reached it to the venue on 11th floor in good time, managing to catch a nice glimpse of their electro-balearic soundscape filling our ears with sweet and catchy tunes, written on a sunny day in Stockholm. And don't even ask me why other people weren't dancing (except from the drunk cool-kids on front row), cause I haven't got the slightest idea why.
Museum of Bellas Artes - Watch The Glow
Let's just start by saying this: even though it was a hard choice, I don't regret for a single second that I missed Kommode, the side-project of Kings Of Convenience's Eirik Bøe over the bunny-masked Sleep Party People, the experimental bedroom project of Brian Batz from Denmark— because to be quite honest, it must've been the best concert I attended throughout the whole Bylarm festival. Afte listening to his works ever since the release of his self-titled 2010 debut, I was prepared for some high-pitched vocals and spacey shoegaze of the more minimalistic kind to fill my ears at the venue Blå, but instead a darker and more electronically leaning sound dominated his set, sometimes almost taking short trips over to post-rock at most. All though I had sort of hoped for a 'lush' ending to the second day of Bylarm, Sleep Party People blew me away and left me feeling incredibly tiny under the huge and trippy tunes they played that night, and I'm quite sure I wasn't the only one sharing the same feeling.
Sleep Party People - A Dark God Heart
Photography: Tonje Thilesen
For more photos, check out the whole set on our facebook page.
Also see bylarm day 1 or bylarm day 3 (coming soon)
On my schedule, the second day of the Bylarm festival in Oslo (Friday February 18th) was indeed the most hectic one, also considering the fact that plenty of the acts clashed on the festival programme, for instance Treefight For Sunlight with The Concretes and French Films or Sleep Party People with Kommode to mention a few. Even though I didn't get to see their whole live set, I at least got to see them all, plus one of Treefight for Sunglight's extra shows on Saturday (February 19th). All though a big percentage of the venues won't let 'underage' people get in due to ID restrictions of 20 or 24 years at most, it still didn't stop me from being using my creativity to get into the strictest venues. ...However, more about that some other time: here are our personal highlights (and not so highlights) from Bylarm day 2.
Starting out with the fantastic Team Me on Thursday last week, I had quite been looking forward to see the rising stars of the beach poppy Young Dreams, whom recently also signed their newest split release to our good friends at Beachtapes, together with the folks of the Norwegian label Télle Records. Having a handful of really strong material already, I cannot deny having high expectations to their performance, as I've heard they're supposed to be amazing live, all though I wouldn't necessarily use the word 'amazing' for their performance at Samfunnssalen on Friday. Indeed being a huge band of none other than 12 (!) band members, you would nearly assume they'd be fit for a bigger stage, but in fact Young Dreams is one of those bands who is best suited playing in a smaller room, just to get that intimate, bedroom pop feel that their music provides. But by all means, it wasn't a bad show. I was just saying.
No-one really knew who Denmark's Frisk Frugt were when their name was announced on this year's festival programme, and as they also were one of the few nominees to the Nordic Music Prize (a long with names such as Robyn, Jónsi and Susanne Sundfør) even more eyebrows were raised, and to be honest, mine too. One moment they were playing all catastrophic and noisy, and the other they would lean towards a whole different genre, almost like blending African beats with bollywood vocals, slowly fading away and turn into a more harmonic lo-fi production. Indeed, it is not easy to understand these guys, or more correctly the solo project of Anders Lauge Melgaard. I'm usually very open towards experimental and art music, but as the weird-sounding album itself, "Dansktoppen Møder Burkina Faso i det Himmelblå Rum Hvor Solen Bor, Suite" didn't sound a thing like what I heard them play live, it's also a little hard to come to a conclusion towards the show.
Starting out with a 20-minute long experimental track which started in the small by using objects such as toys and smaller instruments to create certain sounds (which I quite enjoyed, at least), it suddenly changed into off-beat drumming with a heavy, brain shaking bass in the background, sounding pretty randomly put together with no particular intention in mind. The fact that Anders kept losing his instruments slash objects on stage made the performance look even more ridiculous, and even more confusing when ending the half an hour long live set with an absurd, however beautiful acoustic track which he later acclaimed ironically or not that he he had "won the Nordic Music prize if this track was on my album". Very well, maybe it's just me and my lack of ability to see the 'art' in the music of Frisk Frugt, but to be honest, I can always live with that. This track below is quite lovely however.
Frisk Frugt - Ensemble
On my way to see The Concretes at Blå, I suddenly stumbled accross French Films (FIN) playing at a club nearby, however originally having planned to see them the upcoming day. Following my gut feeling, I decided to see a bit of their set anyway, and it definitely made me not regretting missing the first bit of The Concretes. First seeming to have an awkwardly 'cool' image when playing live (they were almost all wearing sunglasses in the barely lit basement) French Films proved to be a lot more energetic and fun than what I had expected, turning the tiny, but fully packed place into a dance party with their incredibly catchy indie/surf rock.
French Films - Take You With Me
Ever since I tuned in the beautiful track Good Evening by Sweden's The Concretes and superb remixes from both Blackbird Blackbird and Niva, I have been wanting to see them live for ages. Coming slightly late to their show unfortunately, it seemed like I missed them playing that particular track, however followed up by a bunch of other lovely ones from their 2010 album WYWH, slowly but finally making the audience dance along to their carefree indie pop tunes once sung so beautifully by Victoria Bergsman in their more noisier days (before she left to work on her solo project Taken By Trees) — but now as most of you may know replaced by another beauty, Lisa Milberg.
The Concretes - Good Evening
The Concretes - Good Evening (Blackbird Blackbird remix)
The electronic art pop duo Thelma & Clyde was not surprisingly, a great fun to watch, a lot of it because of Hanne Kolstø's ability to seduce everyone with her unique voice and elegant moves, as she didn't need a spotlight to show the audience who was the centre of attention — not being a negative thing, however. The sound could always have been better I guess, but with the tiny venue taken into consideration, it was easy to forget about the shitty sound and just dance along to the heavy bass and funky beats. Once again the half an hour long show proved to be far too short for a show of this caliber, and Thelma & Clyde's set, as well as Lovecult on Saturday, were both perfect examples to this.
Thelma & Clyde - Chess
For us all-eating music junkies, it is nearly impossible to have gone through 2010 without hearing of the Swedish electronic pop trio Museum Of Bellas Artes, which was as far as I recall, a pretty big blog hype last year having premiers on both Stereogum or music blog daddy Gorilla vs. Bear, but indeed with a good reason. After fighting a bit with the bouncer who finally allowed me to get in on the condition of keeping my credit card for my barely 20-minute long stay (what a weird country we live in), I still reached it to the venue on 11th floor in good time, managing to catch a nice glimpse of their electro-balearic soundscape filling our ears with sweet and catchy tunes, written on a sunny day in Stockholm. And don't even ask me why other people weren't dancing (except from the drunk cool-kids on front row), cause I haven't got the slightest idea why.
Museum of Bellas Artes - Watch The Glow
Let's just start by saying this: even though it was a hard choice, I don't regret for a single second that I missed Kommode, the side-project of Kings Of Convenience's Eirik Bøe over the bunny-masked Sleep Party People, the experimental bedroom project of Brian Batz from Denmark— because to be quite honest, it must've been the best concert I attended throughout the whole Bylarm festival. Afte listening to his works ever since the release of his self-titled 2010 debut, I was prepared for some high-pitched vocals and spacey shoegaze of the more minimalistic kind to fill my ears at the venue Blå, but instead a darker and more electronically leaning sound dominated his set, sometimes almost taking short trips over to post-rock at most. All though I had sort of hoped for a 'lush' ending to the second day of Bylarm, Sleep Party People blew me away and left me feeling incredibly tiny under the huge and trippy tunes they played that night, and I'm quite sure I wasn't the only one sharing the same feeling.
Sleep Party People - A Dark God Heart
Photography: Tonje Thilesen
For more photos, check out the whole set on our facebook page.