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Four Norwegian producers reinvent a ’70s staple.
words: Raf Katigbak Photo: Toini Blom (Rune Lindbaek) and
Lin Stensrud (Lindstrøm/Thomas)
Pick up any travel brochure on Norway and they all
talk about one thing: fjords. For some reason, these
glacially carved inlets of water have come to define the
country and its people: cool, distant, romantic. The
same can be said of their music. Over the last decade,
northern Norwegian downtempo and ambient acts from
Biosphere to Röyksopp have invaded lounges and living
rooms with the kind of isolated arctic coolness that could
only have emerged from Scandinavia.
But lately there’s been a rumbling coming from
Oslo. What started as a spark has grown to a
slow burn that’s set to melt the icecaps. The
sound is an unbridled blend of Detroit futurism
driven by the rhythms of Krautrock; it’s
the sound of prog rock psychedelia colliding
with echo-chambered dub effects; it’s touches of
Chicago acid, hip-hop, and Euro disco kitsch;
it’s the imaginary result of Ron Hardy jamming
with Pink Floyd at the Paradise Garage.
It’s called Norwegian disko and everyone from
DFA’s James Murphy to Doc Martin to Trevor
Jackson has been jocking it.
While New Jersey’s Metro Area were arguably
the first to prove that disco could be more
than just cheesy strings and horn stabs, Nordic
producers like Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas, Rune
Lindbaek, Kango’s Stein Massiv, and Todd
Terje are taking the genre deeper, dubbier,
and further into the stratosphere on homegrown
labels like Trailerpark, Beatservice, and
Feedelity, as well as the UK’s Bear Funk and
the Brooklyn-based Modal Music.
Kango’s Stein Massiv
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