OktoberFolk is our gift to concert-hungry pedestrians
— That's not a lie, says Mira and jumps in:
— When our booking agent asked what festival in the world we would most like to play at, and the others said Roskilde, I said Førdefestivalen .
Mira Thiruchelvam in 9 Degrees North dreamed of playing on Førdefestivalen - Saturday they are back at Larris Scene during Oktoberfolk. Photo: Ingvild Alexandra Eide/NRK
Mira Thiruchelvam is one of four musicians in 9 Degrees North. They play ethnic, progressive music - in Tamil.
On Saturday, October 24th, they will take to Larris' stage as the last band and a fireworks display to conclude OktoberFolk, a mini-festival that runs over a weekend.
OctoberPeople is Førdefestivalen is a gift to concert-hungry pedestrians, a vitamin pill in the autumn darkness. There will be six concerts at three venues: Arabic tones in Førde church, authentic Norwegian folk music at Kafé Sobra and four groundbreaking concerts at Larris Scene.
We've had a chat with some of the artists who will be performing.
From a previous concert on Larris stage in 2018. Photo: Amalia Pop
— I notice that gaming jobs are more demanding now that they are rarer. It was different before Covid19. Back then, we played regularly and were in the flow, rhythm and pulse, says Mira.
After a spring, summer and autumn that has been a concert wasteland, where live Norway has fallen silent and barely had a noticeable pulse, it is hard to say who misses whom the most among the musicians and the audience. Finally, we get the chance to go to a concert again, in a controlled and safe environment, and the artists get a long-awaited stage to stand on.
“ We are really looking forward to playing for a music-loving audience.” Førdefestivalen -audience. ”
The day Mira put into words her desire to play on Førdefestivalen , she had recently been here: In 2016, she received the Sparebanken Vest Music Prize together with two other young musicians. The prize winners received festival passes and could go to as many concerts as they wanted.
Mira remembers the feeling of tumbling around in a slightly too-big goody bag and sampling folk music from all over the world.
— It was a dream come true.
Two years later it was her turn. 9 Grader Nord played with a full band in 2018, also this time on Larris stage at Scandic Sunnfjord hotel. Førde's definitive club scene had just opened its doors and is today an important venue on the festival map.
Bright smiles after a successful concert in 2018. Photo: Amalia Pop
9 Grader Nord consists of Mira and her sister Dipha Thiruchelvam on vocals, guitar and flute, Jakob Sønnesyn on bass and Jakob Sisselson Hamre on percussion.
The band has one foot in the city of Jaffna in Sri Lanka, where Mira and Dipha's parents are from, and one in the Bergen wave, the one that began with the rock band Fjorden Baby! in 2005 and turned Bergen into a bubbling cauldron of new bands and great sound.
"The Bergen wave rolls on, and takes an inspired detour to Sri Lanka," reported Dagbladet when 9 Grader Nord released their very first album last fall: "Jaffna." Mira composed the songs on the album. The plan was to aim for the 2020 festival season (and the rest is history).
9 Grader Nord is a festival favorite. In the last couple of years they have played at Øya, Bylarm, Oslo Jazz Festival and Bergenfest, among others.
That they would become so popular among the party-loving, glass-waving festival-goers came as a surprise, not least to themselves. They were a bit shocked by it all. “It was wild, wild béarnaise,” says Mira, referring to the industry event in Bergen with almost the same name.
And it was there at Vill Vill Vest that they were booked for Vinjerock. It was as if they cracked a code.
— We see that our music creates a really good atmosphere, laughs Mira.
Bjørn Tomren and Heine Bugge are not modest - they call themselves the best yodeling and marching duo in the universe.
For 13 years, Polkabjørn & Kleine Heine have been traveling around and whipping up the mood with accordion, yodeling and sing-along, a mix they "stack up" on a travelogue of cool interwar whispers.
The audience loves them, and they have become known as the most unlikely opening band in recent times, with opening gigs for A-ha, Mods, Deana Martin, Katzenjammer and the World Ski Championships. On Friday, October 23, they will take to Larris' stage.
— Well, accordion and yodeling, there are limits to how good it can be. That being said, we are the best accordion and yodeling duo in the universe, says Bjørn Tomren in his familiar, ambiguous style.
He is the polka bear. Kleine Heine is actually called Heine Bugge, and they became a duo in 2007.
— We sat down with our friend Hallvar Djupvik, an opera singer and the third person in the duo, if you can call it that, and watched YouTube videos from Tyrol and Bavaria. It was a kind of sing-along on the border with lederhosen and pasted smiles, and it got us thinking. In an era where pop has played its role as a kind of counterculture, we might as well play the accordion and yodel.
It started as a joke aimed at the audience, but something has changed over the years.
"I feel like we've become the butt of jokes. It's probably fitting for us, as much as we've been fooling around," says Bjørn.
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From nonsense and nonsense to deep seriousness with Bjørn Tomren. Press photo
All that nonsense aside, last year Bjørn released his solo album "Bad Science Fiction", which is surprisingly dark and depressing.
He does a variety of things. In addition to his solo project, he sings in a jazz band and a throat singing trio, and currently, songwriting is what occupies him the most.
— It tends to be about the challenges we face, and then it tends to be a bit gloomy. I'm working on a follow-up album called "Solastalgia." It's a new word that describes the anxiety, or perhaps I should rather say the dazed feeling and melancholy, that many people can feel in the face of climate change, for example.
Solastalgia is not the same as giving up. Bjørn tells about Stefan Sundström, musician and self-proclaimed conservationist and activist.
"He talks about growing potatoes and making compost as something that makes him happy. You don't have to sit around sulking, there's always an alternative to try," he says.
Try yodeling, for example. Or leave the yodeling to Bjørn, and try growing potatoes instead.
“ I feel like we've become the joke. It's probably fitting for us, as much as we've been fooling around and fooling around. ”
From the legendary concert on the roof of Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum in 2018. Photo: Amalia Pop
We at Førdefestivalen is pleased to welcome back Marja Mortensson. She joins four other musicians in Moenje: Hilde Fjerdingøy on double bass, Jo Einar Jansen on fiddle, Fredrik Luhr Dietrichson on double bass and Øystein Aarnes Vik on drums.
On Friday, October 23, they will take to Larris' stage with a fusion of Norwegian folk music and Southern Sami joik.
The last time Marja was in Førde was in 2018, the year the world really took notice of her. She was on a wave, and Førdefestivalen was early in booking her trio with Daniel Herskedal and Jakop Janssønn. The concert took place on the roof of Sogn og Fjordane Kunstmuseum and became a hot topic. "Discovery of the year" was written by Norwegian and foreign music journalists. In 2018, the trio played at Northern Expo in Svalbard and was on a Japan tour, to name a few. Marja surfed the wave all the way into the TV room and received the Spellemannspris for the album "Mojhtestasse"
There were a lot of people, and the concert became a talking point that year. Photo: Amalia Pop
"Joik and pols are merging into a higher unity and are very happy together," wrote Nettavisen's Tor Hammerø, one of many laudatory reporters, when Moenje released their debut album "Klarvær" last year. Experiencing the band live is strong, groundbreaking and not a little refreshing.
"We're having fun on stage," says Marja Mortensson on the phone from Trondheim a few days before they arrive. Førde to play at OktoberFolk.
“ The voice and the yoik melodies often have a descriptive form and hit harder than words. ”
— On the first album we spent a long time finding the shape of the music. Now we have a bunch of new songs with us. We have composed our own melodies with one foot in tradition, and we hope that they will tell the story on an even deeper level, she says.
Sami and Norwegian traditions have crossed paths before. Several Sami fiddlers have made their mark on history, including Lapp-Nils. In the 19th century, he was a legendary fiddler on both sides of the border, in both Trøndelag and Jämtland, and he has given his name to one of the tracks on Moenje's debut album.
— We don't know exactly what it sounded like when Lapp-Nils played the fiddle, because we don't have any recordings. But we can imagine it, says Marja.
Several slaats and polsars have been handed down by Sami fiddlers. South and Ume Samian joik, on the other hand, was disappearing, when Marja took over.
She searched through old archives, and she took a year off after high school to spend time with her elders, especially her grandmother, and learn about the culture and reindeer herding.
Marja wanted to save the melodies that had long been silent. There were some recordings and notes, but the tradition was barely alive. Much was lost in the Norwegianization policy, and Southern Sami is today spoken by less than a thousand people in Norway and Sweden.
She developed her own style of yoiking, traditional and innovative at the same time.
— In many ways, the yoik is a philosophy. It is music, company, storytelling. What feeling do you want to convey to yourself and others? The voice and the yoik melodies often have a descriptive form and hit harder than words. It is almost as if language is not enough, she says, quoting yoiker Biret Ristin Sara:
"The yoik begins where the words end."
“ We have eighths for everyone. ”
In addition to the bands already mentioned, there will be music ranging from the very local to the Middle Eastern.
On Saturday, October 24th, there will be a free lunch concert with the two regional musicians in Vestland, Ole Nilssen and Ingrid Schei Stuhaug, at Café Sobra.
Ole Nilssen & Ingrid Schei Stuhaug serve their local hay favorites - from Løten and Sunnfjord!
Later on Saturday night, Sharqant will play in Førde church. They have a background from Syria and Iraq, but live in Bergen, which is why we can afford a musical journey to the Mediterranean region in the corona era.
In an interview on Jazz in Norway, guitarist Manar Alhashemi says about Sharqant:
– We are three or four guys here in Bergen who play Arabic music. We call it “east of the sea” music, it is music from Syria, Iraq, Palestine, those areas. It is a common musical culture, a common language, an area with its own culture, its own food, its own music. They share rhythms and their own scales, maqam – scales with quarter tones in them. There are nine main scales, and what is really nice is that quarter tones are also found in Norwegian folk music.
Music is one of the ways we can travel in these corona times, and with Sharqant in Førde church you will join the Mediterranean region.
After the low-key concert in the church, the star team of Stian Carstensen, Ola Kvernberg and Ole Morten Vågan in the trio Gammalgrass take to the stage at Larris. With great enthusiasm and enormous playfulness, they serve up the most wonderful lounge music you can imagine. We're talking world class, and no concert with this trio is the same.
Ola Kvernberg, Stian Carstensen and Ole Morten Vågan - back in Førde with their eminent old-school grass music!
When they established the trio Gammalgrass, they discovered that Norwegian old-time dance is surprisingly similar to traditional bluegrass in many ways. On the other hand, there is also something that separates the two musical styles: Why is there so little improvisation in Norwegian folk music? This became a mission for the trio Gammalgrass to find out - and do something about.
With great enthusiasm and enormous playfulness, they serve the most wonderful lounge music you can imagine, with elements from every nook and cranny of Europe and from all musical genres. We're talking world class, and no concert with this trio is the same.
— We have eighths for everyone, say Carstensen & co and hope they see you at OktoberFolk.