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The Spotify Playlist

Norse Play: A Spotify Mix Of Norwegian Music From Oya Festival
The Quietus , August 7th, 2009 11:52

With Oslo's Oya Festival a week away, our friends at Nö Music present a Spotify Playlist of the best Norwegian bands at the bash

Nö Music is an online journal started in 2008, dedicated solely to Nörwegian music. Editor Åse Røyset gives us the insider's guide to Oya

Listen to the Nö Music Oya Festival Spotify playlist

The Øya Festival: The place NME claimed was sandwiched somewhere between medieval ruins and the beach, which would be a spot-on description if Norwegian beaches were known to consist of a dirty old highway, a shiny marble glacier construction of an opera house, and a rusty dock area destined to be swapped for cultural buildings within the next decade. It's an impressive site nonetheless. The centre of Oslo's festival sandwich is a salad of skinny indie kids, electric hipsters, black metallers, a healthy dose of Turbojugend and a ridiculous number of 0-3 year olds on their parents' shoulders wearing massive protective earmuffs. The line-up usually reflects this crowd in a surprisingly appropriate way, and this year is no exception.

Luckily, Nö Music only concerns itself with Nörwegian music; Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys, Glasvegas — off with their heads. Sadly this means acts like Bon Iver or Fever Ray can't make the cut either, but going from Röyksopp to Ulver via Bergenese hip-hop I think we've spread our fingers wide enough within the boundaries of our own country.

For those attending the festival, be sure not to miss one of the annual highlights, the live silent movie soundtrack at Eldorado cinema. This year composed by delightfully godawful Next Life, who will shred Luis Buñuel's L'Age d'Or (1930) to pieces with his aggressive guitar-meets-man-meets-electronics explosion. Those who claim the film is surreal on its own are yet to hear Next Life slicing up eyeballs with his one-minute oratorios.

When entering and leaving the theatre, make time for Lars Vaular in the foyer — hip-hop in an outrageous dialect will prove not only exotic, it'll have you joining in on "I'm from Bergen, Bergen" in a language and dialect you certainly do not speak.

So avoid scaring people off, our playlist starts off with poppy summer hits from Röyksopp and I Was A King, plus a personal semi-guilty, whole-pleasure of mine, Donkeyboy's ‘Ambitions'. Sprinkled across the less friendly part comes breaths of indie air from Hiawatha!, masters of smooth indie gems Harrys Gym and old school sitar indie off The Low Frequency in Stereo's latest album.

Then it's time to let Karin Park out of her cage with dark electro pop introducing the blackhearted noisy souls of Next Life, Årabrot and Haust (a song only partially chosen for its excellent title). Ungdomskulen playfully lure you out on a weirdly proggy dancefloor where DiskJokke's ‘Staying In' and the familiar talking head of Datarock finish the job. At this point of the festival experience you will drowsily end up in the sphere of Bygdin, Jaga Jazzist, Le Corbeau and Ulver, the only obvious link between that lot is how they'll all have you passed out on the bathroom floor with an empty bottle of, well . . . nothing. Yes, I am looking forward to Øya.