Oslo happenings
A few months ago, I wrote about how great is was to be amongst fans of your football club again, after so much time away because of Covid in the main. Well, last week I did something I’d not done for 20 months and crossed a border to go and spend a few days catching up with my noise mates in Oslo. Oslo is probably my favourite city, so it is never a chore going back. Reaching the border and having done all the necessary paperwork and having had all the jabs and having had Covid and recovered from it, I felt nervous and expected the train to stop, for the announcement to come over that we have to return to Sweden. Not so, and the amount of snow increased and I relaxed. We end up being nearly an hour late because this is SJ and I walk to the hotel. Fuck me, there’s so many people! Fuck me, so much life. I begin to relax further and already I can feel my mental state improving.
About a week before I came to Oslo, I’d sent out a message on Facebook to a number of Oslo (and nearby) noiseheads who I met and got to know over the past 5 or 6 years since I started spending more and more time in Scandinavia. I asked if there were any shows happening, or if anyone fancied a beer or just wanted to meet up for a chat. I’d not seen any of them for 2.5 years, longer in some cases. The response was really good and Hotbox members Morten and Kenneth invited me and the rest of the messagees to their new rehearsal space at the bottom of Hausmania, a collectivised building next to the river and pretty centrally located. Some concerts took place in one space, with a new noiser for me in Ada, a graduate from Trondheim’s NTNU and some young lads who do really good techno noise (according to Kenneth) were in the small audience. Later, sets through a bigger PA in the space next door took place with fine projection and lighting. Kenneth and Morten have a fantastic set of spaces to work with and my mind starts thinking about what could be done at home across the border in Värmland. Big thanks to all who performed, it was so good to see the process of live music again, especially in such a varied scene - here are some pictures from the night -
Next day I met up with my mate from the Basque Country, Iosu and we discuss the various lockdowns, separation caused by those and spaces for performing. Later, we head back to his place and he shows me a run down space that he’s planning to turn into a studio and live venue. I am very excited about this as there’s a lot of potential in this space and I’m keen to help him develop it when he starts - this will also help me sort my own space out in our new flat (I actually have my own decent-sized space for a studio - work in progress). We talk about music, playing live again and being creative.
My final day before the train back home is with my chum Christian, an instrument maker extraordinaire in the world of feedbackers. We’d planned to do some recording using the aforementioned devices in his space near the fortress in Oslo, but ended up doing about 10 minutes of “this is how it works” and some discussion of the “støygris”
(above) that he kindly made for me. After that, we discussed noise, my own history in music, how I ended up both in Sweden and as part of many noise scenes across Scandinavia, which will be the focus of my book “Scandinoisia!” (hopefully out in late 2022). All interested publishers with deals apply here! Christian is doing a podcast on noise and I can’t wait to hear the show when it comes out as we talked for about 3 hours without much of a break.
Then I had to go. A whirlwind catchup session had ended. But friendships had been renewed and reconnected and I felt good. Thank you all, my Oslo noise chums and see you in May x
LoS
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