OSLO IN FEBRUARY is challenging. Snow lies and constantly flurries. Daytime temperatures are nine or ten below zero (centigrade) and night typically brings 15 below. Then there's the economic quirk. A beer costs at least £7; a single bus fare is £2.85; pizza and a bottle of mineral water is £18.
MOJO is in the stunning Norwegian capital for by:Larm, the confusingly titled festival of the country's music (it's pronounced "bee-larm" and sort of means "noise in the city"). The three days showcase 144 acts, of whom a fair amount - below double figures for each - are Danish, Finnish, Icelandic and Swedish. But it's the city that initially takes centre stage. Oslo's wide, tree-lined boulevards are curiously French, even when buried under mounds of snow. The random mix of 18th and 19th Century plaster-rendered low-rises and grand municipal structures makes it look as though farmhouses have been casually plonked in the city centre. Functionalist buildings from the 1930s are blockier, subtler answers to NYC's Chrysler building.
The extraordinary architecture bleeds into by:Larm's venues. Danish sonic auteurs Efterklang have chosen to play Magic Chairs, their new album, for the first time at by:Larm. Their venue is the beautiful Folketeateret, completed in 1935. Bassist Rasmus Stolberg declares he's in "opera heaven". Flying saucer light fittings hang over sweeping staircases that could grace the most opulent liners. Dark wooden cladding brings an air of serenity.
On the 11th floor there's another venue called Stratos - basically, a vertigo-inducing glass box in which stellar Finns Joensuu 1685 pummel the audience with their seamless minimalism; think Suicide's organ meshed with Neu! and Spacemen 3 at their heaviest. Look to one side and Oslo is laid out beneath you. It's like being inside a snow globe.
It's not all so picturesque. Norway's image as a country stuffed with warring black metallers is upheld at Gamla - a frieze-lined 19th century beer hall - where Phone Joan, three women and a gurning male guitarist, toss off sludgy Black Sabbath riffs with a PJ Harvey slant. After ripping off the refrain from Deep Purple's Child In Time, the Davina McCall lookalike on vocals declares, "I'm your princess in high heels." Zat so?
At Stratos, ALTAAR are a snail's pace death-metal analogue of Sunn O))) but the most curious metal-related band are Wardruna, the new outfit fronted by former Gorgoroth drummer Einar "Kvitrafn" Selvik. Not metal, Wardruna's windswept dirges are played on acoustic, mainly Viking, instruments. They're pretty threatening, but hopefully won't leave Gorgoroth's trail of beatings, jailings and onstage crucifixions.
Thankfully, another, lighter, style is also embedded in the national psyche: a country-slanted Americana. Playing Rockefeller - an ex-warehouse with horse ramps as its entrance - are Navigators, a slick, hugely well-received country band. After singing in broadly American-accented English about their baby, they engage the audience in Norwegian. Little Hands Of Asphalt play Samfunnsalen and actually are the Greetings From Asbury Park-era E-Street Band.
by:Larm also has a raft of Norwegian bands speaking to less-defined audiences. Electro dance-poppers Casiokids are lively at Rockefeller, but the songs tend to meander. Serena-Maneesh are a bit too My Bloody Valentine for comfort and lack the necessary visceral jolt, while The Megaphonic Thrift channel EVOL/Sister-era Sonic Youth. Kathinka are a female-fronted Megaphonic Thrift offshoot that, although also drawing on Sonic Youth, end up as a rougher Lush.
Dunderhonning are a rarity as they sing in Norwegian. They're engagingly difficult to place: perhaps a lightened-up Mission Of Burma. Charming and warm, they're immensely watchable. Finnish interlopers Rubik are equally beguiling, setting Sigur Rós-like vocals astride an upbeat happy pop infused with stabbing brass and rattling percussion. An eight-piece, their don't-care scruffbag look was at odds with music this crafted. After their set, frontman Artturi Taira quipped, "I have no idea what Norwegians think about Finland, but when you're in a band you want to introduce yourself to anyone who might be interested!"
Susanne Sundfør is a singer-writer on the verge of issuing her third album, and at her piano the intensity she exudes is real and overwhelming. The unrelated Susanna & The Magical Orchestra could be the space-age Carpenters, but pointless covers of Love Will Tear Us Apart and Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah break the spell. More consistently great are Eplemøya Songlag, a female a capella three-piece who adapt the traditional, unaccompanied song-style known as "kveding". Their place at by:Larm was secured after winning a competition on national radio station P2. Liv Ulvik, their most traditionally-inclined vocalist, confessed that "we were a little bit scared about how we would be welcomed. We wondered if we'd be loud enough amongst all these guitar bands." They sang, and silence fell.
Efterklang's Magic Chairs show cast a similar spell. Singer Casper Clauson explained beforehand that "it felt right to play the album first here. We've been rehearsing for three weeks and we really want to do something new. We were playing our last album Parades as a seven-piece and decided to follow this other path, more compact. We played by:Larm in 2005, the first time we played outside Denmark, so it's nice to present our new album here. It seems right, special."
This is the tightest, most direct they have ever been and confidence spills from the stage. As they begin the album's Raincoats, the song's emotions are exposed, raising a tear. Perhaps it was brought on by exhaustion - the product of three days negotiating Oslo's sub-zero snowdrifts - but Efterklang touch a nerve. Clausen's prophecy is self-fulfilling: tonight, by:Larm is more than special.
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