“Dick AIN’T gonna suck itself”: an interview with Pirate Love

“Pirate Love, is what I’m looking for” bawled Johnny Thunders on his superlative slice of lost junkie-punk ‘Pirate Love’. Suitably turbulent years of drug abuse followed until he died in suspicious circumstances lying ‘in the shape of a pretzel’, but Thunders was gone but not forgotten and thirty years later five Thunders fans adopted his battlecry and set out to peddle dirty garage rock on the clean streets of Oslo. With their winning combination of top tunes and scuzzy filth listening to Pirate Love was aptly like being amorously pursued by some salty seadog, caressing you with a metal hook where his hand should be, and the dark assault of debut album Black Vodoun Space Blues flung them to the forefront of Norway’s production line of bands with bite. It is three years since that breathless release made waves, but finally Pirate Love are coming in to harbour again to drop off a similarly confrontational cargo in the form of sophomore effort Narco Lux High School. With interest severely piqued the journalistic coastguard of Nö Music cornered Pirate Love frontman David Dajani to get the lowdown on everything from working with The Strokes’ producer to seeing Jay Reatard implode.

Fittingly, given their musical lineage, Pirate Love have always cast themselves apart from the Norwegian musical establishment. “‘Part of a scene’ doesn’t ring too well in my ears”, tuts Dajani, “we’ve always operated on the outside. Or was it the inside…? Whatever. I guess the common denominator for us, and our friends’ bands, is that we’ve found our own sound, on our own terms and we´re not asking anyone for permission.” That sound might nod to Norway’s hard-rocking history, concedes Dajani, but Narco Lux High School has “more in common with Black Sabbath than Black Metal!” Indeed it is names like The Stooges that most commonly crop up where Space Blues is concerned. “I firmly believe you can hear echoes of the Stooges primitive futurism in songs like ‘Sick of You’, which was geniously mixed by Emil Nikolaisen [Serena Maneesh]”, confirms Dajani of one of the last album’s rawer moments, “this time round though we’ve let ourselves be influenced by everything from Steely Dan to The Germs! And it sounds excellent!” If their latest single is anything to go by Pirate Love are indeed both on form and evolving. Three minutes of Jesus & Mary Chain-esque woozy squalid surf-pop, ‘Thirteen/Clean’ has the makings of the perfect summer anti-anthem – just don’t drop the ‘s’ word. “Shoegazey? Please. Other bands can stare at their laces as much as they want”, sneers Dajani: “we´re into Eyegazing.”

Pirate Love might be confident about the finished product, but getting there wasn’t always plain sailing. “It´s like an addiction”, says Dajani of being in a band, “so we just have to keep on going. Like daytime TV soap operas or something.” Bidding to take things to the next level on the new album, the band roped in regular Strokes producer Gordon Raphael, responsible for the zeitgeist defining Is This It, but whilst Pirate Love might claim to be the “laziest band ever”, it seems that they struggle to cede their independence. “Well, Gordon was a really nice guy and it was fun hanging out with him in Oslo and all”, recalls Dajani rather guardedly, “but at the end of the day, I think we knew how to produce our own record. He ended up recording the drums, but nothing else, so yeah – we collaborated, but not to such an extent that his vision eclipsed ours.” But then Pirate Love have seen enough of the world in the last few years to bring considerable experience to any autonomous creative endeavours. “I think we have more fans in, say, Italy and Switzerland than we do in Norway”, notes Dajani, and indeed much of their efforts have concentrated on foreign climes. The group have toured extensively in Europe and the US, taken in prestigious Texan showcase SXSW, and accompanied several heavy hitters on tour, including Black Lips, The Damned and the late garage-punk maverick Jay Reatard. “Supporting Jay Reatard was an awesome experience”, recalls Dajani, “seeing him play was like witnessing the early Ramones or something. I remember being in the front row in Copenhagen and Hamburg, and my jaw dropped. Like, for real! The sheer energy of his performance was kinda scary. He really did give it a 100% – and then some. He was a pretty cool cat to boot; polite and down to earth. But after the first night of the tour he apparently drank a bottle of gin and kicked a fan in the face, or something. But shit like that happens when you´re strung out.”

That said, part of Pirate Love’s appeal has always been the impression that they too are teetering on the brink of self-destruction. The Norwegian broadsheet Dagbladet observed that it would take a long search to find a ‘blacker’ album than Space Blues, and lyrical titbits like “I’m gonna end your life… you’re a slut you’re a cunt” (from the admittedly winningly catchy ‘In A Dirty Cellar’) support the image of Pirate Love as aggressively nihilistic. Whilst Dajani admits that “’Thirteen/Clean’ is our darkest song, like, ever” he is rather more dismissive of any suggestion that Pirate Love are coming from a bleak place. “Angry is sooo 2008/9. We´re a happy band and we wanna rock out with our cocks out. You know, contrary to what you may have heard: Dick AIN´T gonna suck itself…” In the interests of getting head this self-styled ‘Norwegian Psychedelic Space Boogie cartel’ will be unleashing “a varied, dark and sexual mix of punk rock from the 60s, AOR rock from the 70s and obscure 80s adult contemporary soft rock”, in the form of Narco Lux High School. “We considered going to Africa or another third world country to get inspired”, Dajani glibly proffers, “but found out that a few visits to the local tanning bed house would be equally effective. I think we might lose a few fans with this album, but then gain new ones, too. Spend a buck, earn a buck, ya heard?!” “I get high, on my own supply”, sang David Dajani on Space Blues highlight ‘Skin Deep’. He’s not the only one getting his kicks from Pirate Love’s supply of moody punk pleasures. You could do far worse than spend a buck on this buccaneering crew: “Pirate Love, is what I’m looking for” indeed.

First published on nomusicmedia.com, 2011

Disco Beats From The Gateway To The Fjords

‘Untz untz untz untz’. You know the sound; leaking out of a sweaty club into the adjoining street, thumping through the body of a souped-up car restlessly pawing at a red light, straining through your ceiling from some unseen merriment in an upstairs apartment. It is the sound of muffled pumping bass, the sound of the night, the sound of dancing, the sound of Party. So from the off Untz Untz Records’ ambitions are clear. This freshest of Bergen electronic labels is going all out for shaking hips, flailing hands and nodding heads.

This is a special time for Eirik H. Fagertun and Tarjei Nygård, the two founders of Untz Untz, label manager and ‘studio wizard’ respectively. November 6^th saw the release of their first 12″, UntzUntz001, a four track beast that boasts a quartet of Norway’s most exciting new disco names, but this is just the culmination of what comes across as hyperactive bustle within the Bergen electro scene on the part of the managing duo. Under the aliases Pastor and Touchable Terrence, Fagertun and Nygård both DJ, remix and produce separately and together (as UntzUntz DJ’s), they curate club nights, run an insightful music blog and of course keep the label functioning smoothly. “It has always been a dream for us to run a label and release music, our own or others, since we started dj-ing in our own bedrooms as teenagers” say the duo, who see their fledgling label as a priority within what they call the “big pulp of barely manageable Untz Untz”. To them it was almost a duty to help the great tracks they were hearing onto the record store shelves: “taking responsibility for other people’s music is just a pleasure. Somebody had to step up and get these songs released.” Not that it’s some kind of selfless slog, however: “it’s a pretty special feeling when you are holding the first 12″ in your hands that you have released on your own label”, Fagertun reveals.

The duo’s ambitions may be modest (“We want to keep it small and vinyl only for now. We are just getting in to this business and we are not in a hurry.”), but Untz Untz is nonetheless a synecdochic figure in a nationwide disco scene that has seen Norway emerge as an unlikely genre world leader. The success of Oslo-based producers like diskJokke and Todd Terje, and most significantly the space-disco king Lindstrøm have ensured that right now Norway is pretty much the eye of the disco storm. UntzUntz001 is apt evidence of this nationwide trend. The 12″ unites artists from all three of Norway’s major cities: Oslo, Trondheim, and of course Bergen.

By rights disco is the last thing Norwegian artists should be turning out. This is a place of ice and snow, of year-long darkness and murky waters, of a tangible pagan past and a reputation for interpersonal restraint. Think Scandinavian electronica and The Knife, Trentemøller or The Field fit the bill. The adjective ‘glacial’ should be freely applicable. And yet Norway’s electronic artists are giving expectation the finger and unceremoniously blending the musical equivalent of a tropical juice with lots of bits in. “It is strange”, admits Fagertun, “we should all be making dark angry Viking metal up here shouldn’t we.”  He sees the widespread success as thanks to the initial pioneers both inspiring others and opening “eyes and doors outside of Norway…  So now when you put the words ‘norwegian’ and ‘disco’ together it is seen as quality and good music outside of Norway. The first guys that became big and sold decent amount of records are really important for the guys that are establishing some sort of a career today.” Nygård is more conspiratorial: “difficult to say, maybe global warming has something to do with this?”

It is warm disco beats that unite the four tracks on UntzUntz001. Telephones’ ‘DIG!’ is like a slice of funked-up Devo, Touchable Terrence’s own contribution ‘Find Love’ blends a massive Quincy Jones disco beat with cut-up Ed Banger abruptness, Solli Diskoklubb’s ‘Fest I Bakgården’ wraps hypnotic chimes around a warm pulse, and Velferd’s closer ‘Driveby’ sprinkles twinkling Italo-disco droplets over the naïve synth swells familiar from his band The New Wine’s confident output.

Velferd (Geir Harmansen when he does synth duties for The New Wine) signed to Untz Untz back in April, and Untz Untz had been following (and encouraging) his progress since his first efforts at solo production: “I became friends with Geir when he was just starting out producing disco music on his own”, Fagertun recalls, “so I was one of the first who heard his first tracks. They were remarkably good so I showed them to Tarjei and we agreed that this guy had something special going on. We kept on encouraging him to make new tracks.” Fittingly UntzUntz002, the next scheduled release, due in March, will be Velferd’s.

Touchable Terrence’s presence on the 12″ needs no explanation (the reason for Pastor’s absence, Fagertun admits, is that “I was not producing anything worth a mention at the time, and I still don’t”), but Telephones and Solli Diskoklubb took more roundabout routes on the way to UntzUntz001. Henning Severud (Telephones) was met through mutual friends in Trondheim, and a request for him to send in some tracks uncovered one particular standout: “the ‘DIG!’ track was the one that we kept listening to again and again. The funny thing with ‘DIG!’ is that there was a period when we played it a lot in clubs, then there was always one or two per night that asked what it was. So we signed it and made it the opening track based on that.” Fagertun’s account of first contact with Mikkel Haraldstad, a.k.a. Solli Diskoklubb, is even more coincidental. Fagertun recalls meeting Haraldstad after opening for Australian successes Cut Copy in Oslo last year. “He came up to me after my set asking for a playlist. He spoke to me in English and we talked a bit. Then suddenly he asks me: ‘Are you Norwegian?’ ‘Ehm yes’, I said, and then we burst out in laughter. After a few months he sent me some tracks via MySpace. I didn’t connect the dots that this was the same guy before much later. Anyway, his first tracks sounded cool so we asked him to send us some more. When we got ‘Fest I Bakgården’ we contacted him straight away saying that we wanted this track.”

It’s a good thing he did too, because all four songs make for a varied, exciting and crucially listenable feather in Bergen’s disco cap. The duo behind Untz Untz records make it clear that world domination is far from their minds, but UntzUntz001 is a fine start. After all, they see their shiny new label as “Young, childish, forward-thinking, fun, semi-serious… It has to be fun for us or else there’s no point.” With their frenzied activity across a whole spectrum of musical enterprises it’s clear that fun is exactly what they are having at the moment, and rightly so, because that is what defines Norwegian disco. They can dream, of course, of huge success (Nygård intriguingly describes his ideal Untz Untz signing as “a mutant of Giorgio Moroder, Afrika Bambaataa and Daft Punk”), but for now they are firmly grounded. “Our ambition is to release 2-3 records a year and that some of the tracks will be successful as club tracks”, they reason, “we would also like to see our records available in more and more countries as we go along. If some of the releases get sold out down the line, we would be pretty satisfied.”

Notorious Gonzo mind-expander Hunter S. Thompson once grunted that he felt “the same way about disco as I do about herpes”. If only he were here to experience Norway’s flourishing disco scene today, where white suits and glitter-balls are quite forgotten. The only similarity between the disco of UntzUntz001 and herpes is a body-shaking catchiness – two modest Bergen DJ’s have added another worthy release to Norway’s estimable disco catalogue. If you ever spot Eirik H. Fagertun or Tarjei Nygård washing their hands in the toilets of some hip club, don’t be surprised to see a smile play on their lips as they feel and hear the steady pumping bass, the ‘untz untz untz untz’, and recognize in the beat one of their own – for Untz Untz is the new sound of the night.

Various Artists – UntzUntz001 is available from:
Bergen: Robot and Apollon
Oslo: Filter and Tiger

First published on nomusicmedia.com, 2009

When Skweee Came To Stavanger

Skweee. Where to start… what does it sound like? First and foremost it sounds like… well: ‘skweee’. It’s onomatopoeic, you see. At least that’s what skweee pioneer Daniel Savio had in mind when he coined the moniker – squeezing every last squeak out of aging equipment. And that’s where the story starts; Scandinavia alighting on an electronic genre it could truly call its own. Three or four years ago veteran Swedish DJ Pavan hit on the sound, and called on local like-minded folk to join him. Savio was one of the first. But, as is the way of such evolution, the electronica melting-pot of Scandinavia simultaneously threw up, ahem, skweeejays away across the border: in Finland Mesak and Randy Barracuda, now two of the scene’s most influential names, formed Skweee label Harmönia, that and Pavan’s own label Flogsta Danshall forming the two initial bastions of ‘Scandinavian synthetic funk’.

Skweee is perhaps the missing link between chiptune and dubstep – its protagonists reinterpreting instrumental hip-hop and funk beats through lazy groaning 8-bit equipment, and thus stripping the former of its pomposity and the latter its computer-associated frivolity. There’s a lot of potential there, and it has started to show. Pavan tipped 2009 as the year for Skweee to explode, and sure enough its stripped-down funk strains can now be heard crossing over into the increasingly popular dubstep scene, last year Flogsta and Harmönia artists competed against each other in the annual ‘Skweee-off’ at Barcelona’s huge electronica showcase Sónar, and, more pertinently, skweee practitioners and labels can now be found far afield from the sound’s original base. One of the latest countries to add an exclusively skweee label to the roster is Norway, whose Oslo-based dødpop can already boast releases in the double figures – mostly in what has come to be seen as skweee’s signature 7″ vinyl format – since its formation last year.

It is testament to the swift expansion of the skweee genre that dødpop co-founder and label manager Robert Lorenzo is able to make the cocksure proclamation that dødpop represent ‘Skweee 2.0. Rough, rugged and raw’ – when many are still unaware that skweee 1.0 exists, but then Lorenzo is bullish about skweee’s potential. ‘Skweee is unlike anything else that is out there right now – it’s unique’, the man spearheading Norway’s skweee assault asserts, ‘we wanted to bring something new to the table, that’s the reason why we started to experiment with the genres… I think we’ve managed to establish a skweee scene in Norway.’

The next step in that establishment will take place at this year’s Numusic festival. dødpop will be there, playing live as a collective that includes Norwegian skweee artists Beatbully, Melkeveien and Sprutbass, and the heavyweights behind Harmönia are also making an appearance – Randy Barracuda and Mesak collaborating as Boyz of Caligula – a live outfit that the label claims showcases the ‘heaviest sides of both producers’. At the same time as the festival in Stavanger a ‘Skweee night’ in Oslo under the Numusic umbrella will present Daniel Savio, one of skweee’s most successful proponents Eero Johannes, Norwegian Flogsta signing Easy and, again, the dødpop collective.

Because there are relatively few skweee practitioners – some fifty, largely in Scandinavia – there is a lot of cross-pollination and interaction. Artists from Flogsta and Harmönia regularly collaborate and compete, dødpop have joined them for live shows and releases. ‘Everyone knows each other, and we’re almost like family’, observes Lorenzo, although as he sees it this doesn’t restrict the evolution of skweee; ‘the community does have an impact on the music, but it’s important to remember that the skweee scene is made up of a variety of artists who differ in their styles, backgrounds and preferences. Nobody sounds alike, and everyone is influenced by different types of music.’ Numusic is a special occasion for the ‘family’, however. The Harmönia representatives are celebrating Randy Barracuda’s album release, and dødpop are in the midst of their first full-length release, dødpop vol.1, and both promise a live show to remember. Boyz of Caligula are bringing Swedish vocalist Michael Black Electro along, transforming skweee’s normally instrumental sound with ‘lots of soulful singing’, and whilst Lorenzo admits that ‘skweee isn’t for everyone’, he casts dødpop live as ‘quality skweee, a celebration in the name of modern funk, and music you can dance to. Because a lot is improvised, it’s hard to predict what will happen. We just try to have fun with it.’

And fun seems to be the running theme when it comes to skweee. From Pavan’s first skweee record ‘Punt Kick’, through a collaborative vision first shared by Randy, Mesak, Pavan and Savio in a drunken haze, to the annual skweee-off; the high-pitched synths that overlay skweee’s funk rhythms are all about having fun. Pavan may have predicted skweee’s mainstream breakthrough this year, but when it’s this much fun underground, Robert Lorenzo is sceptical about the genre’s potential ascent. ‘Skweee is starting to get a lot of attention, which is good, but personally we’d like for the music to remain in the underground for a while longer’, he admits, ‘the most important thing for us is the music. And as long as the music remains off the radar, it’ll hopefully be free from being exploited.’ Pop is dead, long live dødpop.

Dødpop and Boyz of Caligula are performing as part of the Numusic festival at Tou Scene 2 on September 12^th at 22:00 and 23:00 respectively, and Numusic’s Oslo-based ‘Skweee Night’ is on Thursday 10^th of September at The Villa.

First published on nomusicmedia.com, 2009