Birds sometimes dance

COU is the solo project of Jørgen “Sissyfus” Skjulstad, the.. boss? Guru? I think I’ll go with spiritual leader, of the Oslo-based underground music collective Metronomicon Audio. After finishing an album trilogy about time and space last year, he has now released something you and I both have always wanted, a Levitating Disk!

One of the most beautiful pearls of Norwegian indie pop finally shines again! And what better way to celebrate their 7-year anniversary than by naming the album name Long Live Herr Nilsson? Apart from dancing, I can’t think of a thing.

Sometimes, an album can be really hard to review. Moddi’s Floriography is an album that really overwhelmed me. Usually it takes me a few days, at most a week to make up my mind and get my thoughts down in words. It’s been a few weeks now, but I think this is the kind of album that needed those weeks.

You know, when the three first songs of a record kicks ass, while the rest of the album is weaker. Well, it’s often like that, but not the case on Ancient Asobi / In Arcadia. It starts great with “Narcoleptic Highway,” “Skull & Bones” and “Jor-El,” songs that have been out for a while, and after that, the greatness continues.

Meet Sjur Lyseid, Oslo’s very own musical alchemist. That is, everything he touches seems to turn into gold. He’s produced about half of the good music that’s come out of this city the last few years and he’s contributed quite a bit in front of the mic as well as behind the levers. This time, the magic is created with his own band Monzano.

It’s cold now. Really cold. So cold that there’s just one thing that can thoroughly thaw our frozen bodies; ukulele pop. It’s most likely a sound you associate more with summertime, but honestly, don’t we need it more right now?

With the conclusion that the people who didn’t end up liking them after the previous album wouldn’t change their minds with the next one anyway, Now We’ve Got Members have decided to screw those people and rather make even more obscure music.

Spoon Train Audio are here with another Oslo compilation, showing yet again how much great music the capital’s independent pop scene has to offer. There’s been a lot of talk about Bergen being the musical capitol of Norway, but for every time I play through Oslo 2, it gets clearer and clearer that Oslo really is the capitol of Norway, musically too.

Kråkesølv is the band I’ve been waiting for for a long time now. They are the fresh breath I needed. Their complex songs are sort of a mix of post-rock, 90’s emo (bands like Mineral, The Van Pelts and Cap’n'Jazz, not the newer kind) and contemporary bands like Death Cab For Cutie. Add in some vocals in a Norwegian dialect and you have something really magical.

What started up as the solo project of Nils Martin Larsen has eventually evolved into a six-piece band, and as the debut album Guidebook To Lamaland was an introduction, this is the further path. As the first album was more experimental and electronic, this second album is more Post-rock.