#kings-of-convenience — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #kings-of-convenience, aggregated by home.social.
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Den kognitive dissonansen mellom kor mykje eg elskar denne songen (og videoen) og kor FUNDAMENTALT ueinig eg er i teksten: Rekordhøg.
https://youtu.be/OczRpuGKTfY?
(Kings of convenience - I'd rather dance)#AlltidKjøkkengjeng #NorskTut #KingsOfConvenience #MusikkTut
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🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on #BBC6Music's #ChrisHawkins
Kings of Convenience:
🎵 Toxic Girl -
Kings of Convenience - Riot on an Empty Street
Back after a hiatus, and resuming with a Simon and Garfunkel pastiche that’s a degree and a half away from The Boxer, and refers lyrically to S&G as well.
Anyway, the two Norwegians are joined by Feist, as in that Feist, on two tracks…and everything’s beautifully played and sung.
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#KingsOfConvenience も #Vivaldi :vivaldi_red: も #Norway 🇳🇴 だなあと思って、#Norway のバンドとか音楽を #AppleMusic で聴きにいってる。
もともと知ってはいた #KakkaMaddaFakka も最近のを改めて聴いたら良かったし、 #Razika というバンドも良くて、あといま見つけた #TØFL というバンドがめっちゃ良いhttps://music.apple.com/jp/artist/t%C3%B8fl/1265555715?l=en-US
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大好きな #KingsOfConvenience が #Vivaldi :vivaldi_red: と同じ #Norway 🇳🇴 出身だと最近知った :tony_smiling:
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if it’s raining where you are may I suggest this album as a soundtrack to your day:
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I love this song: https://song.link/us/i/3027556
and I love this Kings of Convenience cover too: https://youtu.be/Wg7UHc8R5SI
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Scars on Land, #KingsOfConvenience https://song.link/us/i/1663662158
Northern Line, #Moddi https://song.link/us/i/1345726451
Re: Stacks, #BonIver https://song.link/us/i/947059839
Amsterdam, #Coldplay https://song.link/us/i/1122776162
Impossible Soul, #SufjanStevens https://song.link/us/i/392328292Spotify playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6QRIOo7sZHTUvKeIcT9gy5?si=8HaVyCmRSXqm-enM6J0Rug&pi=u-zhrjFBP4SNuC
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Show a view to someone who chose to
Live his whole life in a cave
He’ll raise his arms to protect his eyes from burning
And the blindness to which he belongsThis time it’s me, it’s me—cascades of chances I’ll just let them be
The unfamiliar is right below our eyes
But we look for what we knowFreedom never greater than its owner,
Freedom is the mastery of the known
Freedom never greater than its owner
No view is wider than the eye -
And now, for something completely different.
Today’s spotlight is on two albums from The List, plus a third by an artist also on The List for other titles, as they create a musical frame for the first novel from Norwegian musician, Jenny Hval. Even if you haven’t read (or don’t plan to read) the book, I think listening to the three albums highlighted below make for an interesting little triptych.
Paradise Rot, originally published in 2009 in Norwegian under the title Perlebryggeriet, is a surreal coming-of-age/sexual awakening story, following 20-year-old Jo as she arrives in a foreign country (England) to start university. In its early stage-setting pages, following a social event for new students, there’s a reference to the Norwegian band Kings of Convenience:
“…I walked slowly back to the hostel alone, headphones on. I felt a need for something familiar in the strange, dark streets, something from Norway, so I put on Kings of Convenience. They sang in harmony, one voice for each of the tram tracks that gleamed in the dark next to me. They sang slowly as I was closing in on the hostel by the pier. Later I felt the walls of the attic close in, collapse around me and shut out the world. The music seperated me from the sound of cars, wind, and my own steps.”
Hval, Paradise Rot, page 10 (2018 English translation by Marjam Idriss)
While the exact album isn’t noted and, given the book’s publication date, might be earlier than the 2009 title we have on The List, Declaration of Dependence (number 108, submitted by nathanlovestrees), the band’s earlier two albums have a similar feel. It’s really beautiful acoustic indie folk/pop, in the vein of Simon and Garfunkel and on the same wavelength as José González, perhaps even sharing the general vibe of the Garden State soundtrack.
I hadn’t actually heard Declaration of Dependence or anything else from the band prior to checking it out after finishing Paradise Rot. So, having read Hval’s second novel first, Å hate Gud (literally ‘To Hate God’, published in English as Girls Against God), which references Darkthrone and other black metal throughout, I was a bit surprised to encounter such a chill album in Hval’s writing. But after listening to it, the scene the band appears in reads as a familiar one – the need for a piece of music that aurally recreates home, when somewhere strange and overwhelming. If KoC conjures up home, it sounds like a very comfortable home.
Later, following a surprising, confusing night with a friend in Jo’s strange new apartment, a converted but cavernous old brewery, she reaches for the sonic comfort of the song “Alison”, found on Slowdive’s 1993 album, Souvlaki (number 645 on The List, submitted by frozen) (note: character name replaced with “—” to avoid spoilers):
I played music and turned the volume up as high as it would go to push — out of my head. In my headphones, noise and effects enveloped a simple vocal melody. Surrounded by the naked factory I got the feeling I was in a church, a sense of space and grandeur, almost dizzying. The vocalist sung with a mysterious, veiled timbre:
Alison, I said we’re sinking / There’s nothing here but that’s okay / Outside your room your sister’s spinning
As the song transitioned into an interlude, the melody paled. The echoes of the words remained, as if they had fallen into themselves and continued to be there, smaller and smaller:
Alison, I said we’re sinking
…When the song faded out, I noticed that the air in the factory had become dense and stuffy. I removed my headphones…The house seems different, snugger, as if the building had contracted.
Hval, Paradise Rot, page 67-8 (translation by Idriss)
Again, the sounds of Slowdive wouldn’t be at home in the black metal world of Hval’s second novel, but in Paradise Rot, it works to great affect. The shoegaze/dream pop song adds to the surrealist feel that gets stronger from this scene on, as both the apartment/factory and Jo’s relationships transform, with a paired sense of weighted comfort and melancholy. Whenever I personally listen to shoegaze, I’m immediately transported back to the foggy graveyard-centric small town where I moved to for my first taste of independence and adulthood – a basement suite that, at first, felt roomy and glorious simply because it was mine…until the dampness and cold and lack of money (and strict early noise curfew) made it suddenly not a great fit. While Slowdive wasn’t on my radar at the time, Hval’s reference to Souvlaki brings me back to that basement suite, my own converted brewery of sorts, and the graveyard town.
The final musical reference is to Björk’s Vespertine (which follows the two Björk albums we have on The List). Unable to drown out/escape what others are doing elsewhere in the apartment/brewery outside the cubicle-type walls of her room, Jo again turns to music, though this time it fails to bring any sort of comfort (character names again replaced with “—” to avoid spoilers):
I put on some music, but the song that started playing was from Björk’s Vespertine album, so intimate it only took me closer to — and —. The strings and voice sounded like myriads of intimate touches, and each beat sounded like it was played from inside someone’s body…I turned the music off and decided to get up and leave.
Hval, Paradise Rot, page 117-8 (translation by Idriss)
As Jo goes towards the door, she notices that the apartment around her is all damp, with grass and mushrooms growing in the cracks. Whereas the KoC album cited at the beginning of the book provides Jo a comfortable and uncluttered place to escape the unknown, and then Slowdive provides a thick atmosphere to distract or shield her from the imperfections of what she was just starting to think of as her new home, Björk’s maximally layered, sensual, alive, and all-encompassing music adds to the feeling that Jo’s apartment has become its own microcosm that, if it can’t be escaped, becomes cloying.
I personally love Hval’s writing and would recommend Paradise Rot (and Girls Against God) to those up for some strange, uncomfortable scenes, with the caveat that her work isn’t for everyone. But, whether you read Paradise Rot or not, I do recommend listening to these three albums, perhaps even in a row, adding your own narrative to connect them.
- Kings of Convenience – Declaration of Dependence: Discogs | Songwhip
- Slowdive – Souvlaki: Discogs | Songwhip
- Björk – Vespertine: Discogs | Bandcamp
- Jenny Hval: Website | Bandcamp
[Alt text for accompanying image: The book cover has the three album covers superimposed on it. The book artwork is a dark image of mushrooms and other plant matter, either a digitally altered photograph or digital image; the book title is in pink font near the top, and the author’s name is in blue font near the bottom. The KoC album cover is in the top-left corner; the artwork is a photograph of two people sitting on a beach, one playing guitar, with the band name in yellow font at the bottom center and the album name in white font below it. The Slowdive album cover is in the center; the artwork is a close-up photo of the band, with the band and album name in white font in the bottom-left corner. The Bjork album cover is in the bottom-right corner; the artwork is a photo of Bjork lying on the ground with her arm over her face, wearing a swan around her neck; a drawing of a swan is printed on top of the photo, with the album name coming out of its beak.]
#1001OtherAlbums #1990s #2000s #Bjork #bookstodon #Iceland #indieFolk #JennyHval #KingsOfConvenience #Norway #shoegaze #Slowdive
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And I don't know of a more perfect vernal equinox song than the opening track from the album:
"The day breaks and everything is new"
https://youtu.be/ZgfgjOqS1LA?feature=shared
#VernalEquinox #SpringEquinox #KingsOfConvenience #QuietIsTheNewLoud
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Things seem so much better when
They're not a part of your close surroundings
Like words in a letter sent
Amplified by the distance -
Killers, won't you come here and kill some time?
https://open.spotify.com/track/472zpXoji7Y6U7x3gGaRSv?si=IL07EJhqReinQQMdCYZrBw
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There is something in this song that, to me, sounds like what spring feels like. Simultaneously a gentle plaint for what has been lost to the seasons and their changes and a subtle paean to the possibility of their recovery in new forms.
Rocky Trail by Kings of Convenience
https://youtu.be/pdv5n_Qgiw4?feature=shared
or
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https://open.spotify.com/track/78T47bvMrlZ6PG3nq34HQf?si=KTtle3xGQS67BcEhQWue-w
I came to this song from #KingsOfConvenience Playlist. :tony_normal:
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This album makes me feel like the weather today.
"There are very many things I would like to say to you
But I've lost my way, and l've lost my words
There are very many places I would like to go
But I can't find the key to open my door"#KingsOfConvenience #QuietIsTheNewLoud #AlbumOfTheDay
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mUUz9hAgrl9DA7_KUBgaJI2KaKOmpu-54&feature=shared
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My favorite version of this though is playing "I Don't Know What I Can Save You From" by #KingsOfConvenience at exactly 11:59:34 and Eirik Glambek Bøe will sing "midnight" at midnight.
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We take what's dead
And breathe life in
And move like knives
Through scars on landhttps://open.spotify.com/track/0mLsE9bR8ftZeZBFTiAvO3?si=slOMlwDHTnGBMUcTPAuNsQ
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Been revisiting this album from 2017, a side project of one half of #KingsOfConvenience This song in particular just hits all the right spots for me.
"The only thing about you that you cannot see
Is the part that I see and that part is clear to me
I know every picture is a different one
Depending on your angles and shoulders you're standing on
Yours have been conflicted it appears to me
Could that be a blind spot inside of your focus point?" -
Still can't believe I got to see (and meet!) the Kings of Convenience last Friday.
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(Coda) and if you are unfamiliar with their music I made a Spotify playlist just for you:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ofi2wUOEHicsBQZJrxHvi?si=i7sytI5ITJuLLlKWSIHdXQ
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5/5 My friend, who is much more bold than I am, played a song I wrote for both of them! I was so embarrassed! But... They both loved it! They listened attentively and had really positive and supportive things to say about it, with Eirik even asking how he could listen to it again because he liked it so much! I can die happy now. Here are some pictures with each of them, where I look like a complete goofball who is more excited than a kid on Christmas morning...
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2/ However, #KingsOfConvenience are an important exception for me. Despite having a number of songs that are very serious and earnest and, dare I say, quite depressing, there is a groove to everything they do which is amplified and deepened on stage (obviously literally amplified as well). It was so easy for me to dance and groove and sing along and actually have fun—they made it so easy! They clearly have fun playing, which helps.
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Unpopular opinion: live music is annoying and almost never worth the hassle. I used to be a professional musician, so I mean this from both sides.
That being said, I can't think of any other musician/band I would stand in the rain for hours for other than #KingsOfConvenience
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Tonight's the night! Kings of Convenience live! Here's a picture from when I saw them in Copenhagen in 2016.
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The Kings of Convenience show is tomorrow! It's been almost exactly 7 years since I first saw them and over a decade since they've toured in the US.
I made a playlist of some of my favorites for anyone interested in becoming as obsessed with them as I am:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4ofi2wUOEHicsBQZJrxHvi?si=4esawBsxQViJXV1KynA8Jg -
First record in the new place
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Don't look back, don't think of the
Other places you should've been
It's a good thing that you came along with meGold in the air of summer
You'll shine like gold in the air of summer