Musicians in the States have a lot to learn from their Scandinavian brethren. The countries of Sweden and Norway have been home to a bevy of brilliant artists, from Robyn to the Cardigans, Dungen to Acid House Kings, all of whom have been releasing brilliant singles and albums that make our domestic product sound positively shoddy in comparison. It's a fascinating conundrum when you consider that, if you asked them, they might cite a fair number of American acts as influences to their sound. Like many of our best pop groups of the '60s, they have taken our music, improved upon it and fed it back to us.
Another example of this practice is a band from Trondheim, Norway called Deleted Waveform Gatherings. Although the creative heart of the band, Oyvind Holm, talks of "being drawn into the world of the Beatles" at any early age, the music on the band's first American release Complicated View sounds like they have digested the first Nuggets box set in one big chunk, infecting their own sound with the purest strain of psychedelia and garage pop. The album, out on the U.S. imprint Rainbow Quartz Records, shows the strains of the modern world with a smattering of programmed drums here (front and center on the shuffling "Ways Around It") and some warbling synths there, but is otherwise a loving homage to the music that has fed Holm's musical visions since he started writing songs in the early '90s. At that time, Holm was a member of another '60s-inspired group called The Dipsomaniacs, which released six albums before calling it a day in 2003.
In the wake of that band's break up, Holm released a solo album (2005's The Vanishing Act), that ended up being the impetus for putting together a new band. "I needed a backing band to promote the album," Holm recalls, "So I asked people I knew from other bands, people I knew could relate to the kind of music I write. When it came time to record new material last year, I realized I enjoyed playing with them so much, I wanted to record a band record instead of another solo album." The four men that Holm found (Hogne Galaen - guitar/backing vocals, Anbjorn Viem - keyboards/backing vocals, Robert Skjaervik - bass/backing vocals, Freddy Bolso - drums) add the right amount of vintage depth to the songs thanks to their snappy backing vocals and liberal use of vintage keyboards.
A fascinating aspect of the work Holm has done to date is his embracing of modern technology for recording purposes. Most '60s revivalists take a purist's stance, hoping to achieve a vintage sound by recording on analog equipment. Holm, on the other hand, covers his '60s grit with the gloss of ProTools and CueBase. In fact, his band's name came as a result of dabbling with those programs. "I had been playing around with an idea of doing a more experimental project. The idea was to ask other artists and bands to give me pieces of sound and tracks that they had edited out of their sessions. Then I would put it all into my computer and create new music with whatever they gave me. And since sound is displayed as waveforms in those programs, I thought the name Deleted Waveform Gatherings would be perfect for the project." That project never did get off the ground, but Holm repurposed the name for his new band, furthering his history of using old material for new ends.
Complicated View has been in the hands of European consumers since late 2006, giving Holm and Co. much time to further their musical reputation through their live performances, something that Deleted Waveform Gatherings hopes to do in the U.S. this year. "I always find it rewarding to play to people outside of Norway, because many of them don't know much about us so they focus on the music." It remains to be seen then if Holm will become as widely known and revered as some other Scandinavian artists have managed to do of late, but it isn't anything Holm is concerning himself with. "At the moment I am writing songs for the next Deleted Waveform Gatherings album. We will start working on it in the fall and hopefully start recording an album early next year. In between that we'll do as many gigs as possible, both in Norway and hopefully in other parts of the world."
--Bob Ham
Photo: Kim Nygard
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Deleted Waveform Gatherings' Complicated View is available now on Rainbow Quartz Records.
http://www.rainbowquartz.com
http://www.myspace.com/deletedwaveformgatherings
