Today on the Scroll: A special report from Oslo on a music conference that’s really north-by-northeast
OSLO, NORWAY — They say that, in Toronto, there are only two seasons: winter and construction. But here in Oslo, road crews don’t hibernate for the winter — they work overtime. Stepping out of Central Station into the city centre, one is forced to navigate through a labyrinthine web of barricades and fences just to cross the street, making the downtown core resemble one of those police-state-sanctioned immigrant quarantine zones in Children of Men. And that may not be too gross an analogy, given that the music conference that brought me here, by:Larm, supposedly takes its name from the kind of air-raid siren that rang through Oslo when the Nazis were attacking. (Perhaps not coincidentally, a similarly shrill noise is emitted by conference guests when they’re informed by local bartenders the Heineken they just ordered is going to cost them the equivalent of $12.)
Though by:Larm is Norwegian in origin — relocating to different host cities across the country throughout its decade-long history — its 120-plus artist line-up represents a united front of Scandinavian music, with healthy representation from Sweden, Denmark, Iceland and even the Faroe Islands (located between Scotland and Iceland, but under controversial Danish rule that makes it something like Scandinavia's Quebec). If recent, under-performing albums by the likes of The Hives and Soundtrack of Our Lives have somewhat diminished the cachet that Scandinavia accrued during the 2002 garage-rock golden era, the depth and breadth of the by:Larm program proves the area is far from a spent resource. And as you’d expect from a Scandinavian festival, by:Larm boasts formidable standards of efficiency (with bands limited to 30-minute sets, all starting on time), attendee-friendly scheduling (with most bands playing multiple shows throughout the weekend, allowing you to catch last night’s buzz band today) and groups with names like The Cumshots.
But as much as by:Larm is designed to showcase Norway and its neighbours, the presence of 20-odd invited North American music critics and label reps speaks to the festival’s true intention: to help export Scandinavian bands abroad. As any domestic act will tell you, you can only play Trondheim so many times — this is, after all, a country where you need only sell 15,000 albums to earn a gold record (compared to 50,000 in Canada and 500,000 in the US). A ticket to North America is thus not only essential to broadening a band’s audience base, but it also opens up artists to the seemingly bountiful supply of government-sponsored financial support.
In its bid for overseas credibility, it’s no surprise that the conference’s most notable guest speakers are from the States: New York writer Michael Azerrad (speaking not about his involvement in the recent Kurt Cobain doc About a Son, but rather his 2000 American indie-rock tome, Our Band Could Be Your Life) and former Dead Kennedy-turned-roving-lecturer Jello Biafra. The latter opened his Friday-afternoon spoken-word set at Mono by revealing that his invite to by:Larm was contingent on him not talking about such well-worn, “boring” topics like Bush and Iraq — so instead he lashed out on “Ba-rockstar” Obama and “HillBillery” Clinton, assailing them for being no more progressive on issues of artistic freedom and obscenity than the “idiot king” one of them’s destined to replace.
Despite by:Larm’s prevailing wheel-and-deal culture, the ’80s DIY ideals that Biafra personifies and Azerrad venerates are not entirely lost on some participating artists. Bergen trio Ungdomskulen (say it five times slowly) not only adopt the avant-rock aesthetics of indie iconoclasts like The Minutemen and Black Flag, but their politics too: earlier in the week, the band announced their withdrawal from the shortlist for an award underwritten by an oil company. And yet the trio’s brawny, polyrhythmic sound also speaks to a distinctly Norwegian sensibility. Contrary to reports of pagan black metal’s dominance in the country — the only visible evidence of which at by:Larm was some “Satan” graffiti on the side of the Kultrurkirken Jacob church — it would appear all of the country’s aggro-music heads are really just frustrated jazzbos and prog-rock musos, from the Coltrane-via-Stooges sax-punk onslaught of The Thing (name-checked by no less an authority than Jamie frickin’ Callum in By:Larm’s daily newspaper), to the Miles Davis-at-Pompeii psych explorations of Kiruna, to (on a less appealing note) the Zappa-damaged, synth-swaddled thrash of Shining. (It’s worth noting that the band bios in the by:Larm program feature an inordinate amount of Mars Volta references.)
But for every act determined to send industry interlopers scurrying out the door, there were several more waiting for their close-up. In the case of chanteuse Hanne Hukkelberg — think Feist with less Joni Mitchell and Bee Gees and more Tom Waits and Kurt Weill — the close-up was quite literal, as journalists were invited into the cozy Propeller Studios for an intimate, candlelit reading of tracks from her upcoming Nettwerk Records debut, Rykestrasse 68 (including an accordion-wheezed deconstruction of the Pixies’ “Break My Body”). Hukkelberg’s slow-burning torch songs were refreshingly understated compared to those of by:Larm’s most anticipated breakout artist, Ida Maria, who, just one song into her slam-packed Sentrum showcase, was pleading the crowd to “show me love!” while doffing her shirt to reveal a skimpy halter top. Her steady jangle-pop jaunts don’t immediately herald the pop diva-dom that so many industry players in the room are convinced she will achieve — on Saturday night, the festival awarded her its annual prize of $20,000 in international marketing support — but, really, all she needs to do is cover “Walking on Sunshine” for the soundtrack of some teen rom-com and she’s set.
However, if you ignored the next-big-thing sweepstakes, by:Larm provided more than enough face time with Scandinavia’s new noise: pretty-in-punk all-femme foursome Cyaneed, who form the missing link between the Runaways and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs; if ’60s-were-’90s shoegaze revivalists The Lionheart Brothers, who could give fellow Norwegians Serena a run for their Maneesh; underrated Danish pop dreamers The Kissaway Trail, who layer star-gazing Flaming Lips-ian melodies atop guitars set on “twinkle”; well-bearded Faroe Island freaks Boys in the Band, who augment their Franz Ferdinand dance-rock foundation with spastic keytar contortions and singer Zachariasson’s over-the-top, Danzig-worthy bellow; electro-pop party posse Casio Kids, who twitch and shout like a more chipper Hot Chip; and Pirate Love, who, with their goth-garage get-ups, initially suggest a Norwegian answer to The Horrors, however, the Iggy-cribbed song titles (“Death Trip,” "Sick of You"), obscure Primal Scream covers (“Rise”) and Jane’s Addiction-styled theatrics (guest belly dancers!) betray carefully cultivated influences that extend beyond last week’s NME.
Whether these artists will benefit from the by:Larm boost, of course, remains to be seen; as it stands, the most mesmerizing performance I saw all weekend was a capacity-defying small-club appearance by local rave-rock heroes 120 Days, who have already familiarized themselves with North American interstates through their deal with Vice Records. For others, however, a ticket out of Oslo is a prize that seemingly no festival can provide. As Shining singer/saxophonist Jørgen Munkeby admitted from the Dog A stage: “We played by:Larm two years ago… and nothing happened. We’re playing it again now, and still nothing’s happening. But… fuck it.” And with that, the band blasted into a metallicized cover of King Crimson’s “21st Century Schizoid Man” — proving that, in Norway, if you can’t have progress, at least you’ll always have prog.
Boys in the Band play Wrongbar (1279 Queen W.), March 6 at 11pm, and The Annex Wreckroom (783 Bathurst), March 8, 8pm as part of Canadian Music Week.