A new compilation from the Oslo label Snick Snack Music offers strong evidence that the small Norwegian scene that gave us the likes of of Röyksopp, Todd Terje, Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas and Bjørn Torske is in as rude health as ever.
Compiled by label owners Tore Gjedrem (of Sex Judas and Ost & Kjex – pictured above) and Truls Kvam (of Trulz & Robin), Snick Snack: SmåSnacks Vol. 2 features 13 tracks from themselves, friends and associates, covering cheeky house burners (Ost & Kjex, Henrik Villard), low-slung sleaze (Sex Judas feat. Ricky), electro-funk (MOJO), ass-shaking nu-disco (Mungolian Jetset), afro-house (Djembe Tekno), and more.
“It’s basically a celebration of the Norwegian scene and artists we really like and believe in,” Tore tells Inflyte+ on a video call from Oslo. “We just want to give a cross section of what’s going on.”
Sitting next to him on the call, Truls adds: “It’s a way for us to gather a lot of friends and people from Norway who make great music – we can create something together and get attention on everyone through Snick Snack.
“And it’s just fun to do. We get a bit closer with a lot of the artists when we do a compilation like this. And also when it’s artists we haven’t released on Snick Snack before, then it’s a good feeling.”
The compilation took “two or three years” to put together, according to Tore. “The Norwegian scene, we are slackers,” he smiles. “Everybody is a bit chilled out, taking it easy. That’s both a strong thing and a negative thing – it makes things not happen that much, but still it’s a good way of life. We’re very patient here.”
Despite the breadth of sounds across the album, it all somehow works as a cohesive whole, and a seriously fun listen from start to finish. And that word ‘fun’ seems to be key, with a little psychedelia and a healthy disinterest in commercial interests – the threads that connect everything together.
“You know, the Oslo scene is so small, so you know everybody here and each producer is their own island in a way,” Tore explains. “Everybody has their own thing going. Also, I’m not concerned that the label should have one cohesive sound. We’re more about the individual expressions and styles of each artist, and we try to find the ones that have a strong identity.
“But still, I like the fun-loving and ‘not caring too much’ side of the Norwegian scene. And there’s a lot of humour there, a lot of experimentation and willingness to go other places sonically. These are the things we look for. It doesn’t matter if it’s techno or if it is nu disco – it doesn’t matter at all, as long as it’s solid and good.”
“We love music, all kinds of music,” Truls adds. “If it touches us and we feel it’s something special, it can be whatever, really.
“We’re thinking about the second compilation that will maybe come later this winter. This one was more towards the summer, so it’s a bit more playful, and maybe the one in winter will be a little bit darker. It’s fun to do this – different styles.”
Of course, over the last 25 to 30 years since the emergence of Bjørn Torske, via Röyksopp, Lindstrøm, Prins Thomas, and Todd Terje – all from different parts of the country – terms like ‘space disco’ and ‘nu disco’ have become stuck fast to the Norwegian scene.
Tracks like Lindstrøm’s I Feel Space and Closing Shot, and Todd Terje’s Ragysh and Inspector Norse – hypnotic, euphoric, colourful anthems as they are – are emblematic of whatever you may identify as a ‘Norwegian sound’. But for Tore and Truls, that only scratches the surface.
“I would say that ‘the disco scene’ as a label is a bit limiting and doesn’t describe the scene properly,” Tore argues. “It doesn’t even describe Prins Thomas’s work properly because he does everything from ambient to jazz to techno. But it’s the label that’s stuck with the media and, you know, that’s okay. That’s the way it goes.
“But the Norwegian scene has always been very diverse and a bit like it is now – different people doing different sounds. And it’s just been really open all the time. It’s just that we love the music and we love all the styles within it. You know, within reason, of course!
“They love their ambient. They love their soul. They love their disco classics. They love their hardcore techno. They love Basic Channel. They love Krautrock, anything. It’s mostly digging and finding cool artists and new sounds. The joy of all the diversity and quality of dance music is what we’re after.”
Tore adds that the fact that the Norwegian scene is very small – despite the outsized impact of its biggest artists – and on the northern fringe of Europe, means that artists there tend not to concern themselves with hitting the big time. Not like London, Paris or Berlin, anyway.
“A few of us have had international success, but mostly not,” he says, “and the Norwegian DJs play at Norwegian clubs catering to the Norwegian scene. And we don’t have the options like maybe you have if you live in Berlin, that this thing can really blow up if you adjust your sound: ‘OK, I will play a little bit more like this, maybe make it a bit tighter, then people will discover me and my music will fit into the DJ sets of Marcel Dettmann or whoever, big DJs’.
“People don’t even take it into account here because the possibility for major success or being an international player is not so much on the agenda. You know, it’s a long way from Oslo to Berlin. Not maybe in flight time, but mentally it is.”
With all that said, Tore and Truls are happy to acknowledge the true pioneers of the scene, going as far back as the late 80s and early 90s, when they were wide-eyed youngsters getting turned onto underground dance music for the first time.
Tore recalls: “Maybe the start of the whole thing was the Tromsø scene in the far north, with Bjørn Torske, Röyksopp, Per Martinsen and a lot of other people. I was young then and going to festivals in Norway, and I saw these Norwegian acts playing alongside Aphex Twin, Leftfield, these major acts of the time, seeing them on the same stage and sounding just as good. And that was a major thing for me, I remember. Then you see it’s possible.
“Back in the early- and mid-90s, the thought that Norwegian music could be hip and on the continent was fucking unbelievable and not very likely to happen. But with the club scene, this happened and it was a major inspiration for a lot of us, I think. Not necessarily to see people making money, but seeing them up on the stage, doing their craft and being good at it and communicating with the world.
Truls adds: “Yeah, totally. And since Norway is so small, everyone was friends. So you went to Bergen to play and then you hung out with Bjørn Torske and Per Martinsen, and Röyksopp and all this, and it was not like they were someone, you know?
“Everyone was just a part of the scene and then suddenly someone blows up, and of course it’s very inspiring. I think it was a very good energy for Norwegian music that some of them broke through.”
One track in particular stands out for the two veteran DJs – and it isn’t one we’ve already mentioned. In fact, it’s so important for this generation of Norwegian artists that Tore and Truls’s friend Øyvind Morken also chose it in his Scene & Heard: Oslo feature recently – Jeg Vil Være Søppelmann (I Want To Be A Binman) by Bjørn Torske.
Released in 1999 on the Svek label, this raw, percussive house monster took on a life of its own, as Tore recalls: “I remember that almost more clearly than I Feel Space or Inspector Norse, because it was some years before.
“I remember that one blowing up in Miami at the music conference and people sending videos home from the dance floor. And that was like, ‘What the fuck?’.
Truls: “It was huge and it’s such a party track also. It took the clubs and the parties by storm, you know, ‘What is this mayhem?’.”
Then there was the time Bjørn Torske handed his first release as Krisp to Detroit legends Derrick May and Stacey Pullen during their set at a Norwegian festival in the mid-to-late 90s… “It’s like a thousand or 1500 people, Stacey Pullen and Derrick May are playing, and suddenly he hears his track pumping out, this Detroit heaven of a track,” Truls recalls.
“Moments like this – you know, a little guy from Bergen comes with his vinyl and suddenly they’re blasting it out on the whole festival. It’s very inspirational.”
There’s a direct throughline from that moment to today’s Norwegian scene, as rich and creative as ever, from Tore, Truls and their contemporaries, to a younger generation with artists like Anders Hajem and Henrik Villard, both on the new compilation, Patås, Lárus, and labels like Lek, Snorkel, Boring Crew and Mhost Likely.
“I’ve had several meetings with people who make music, who have now maybe become friends or I’ve met, who have told stories of, you know, ‘I found your album 20 years ago and it inspired me to start creating music’,” says Truls.
“Definitely, there are a lot of new young people coming up,” Tore adds. “We don’t even know them all.”
As for Snick Snack, there’s another volume of SmåSnacks to come in the new year – the one with the darker, ‘winter’ vibe – and new music from one of their top tips, Helene Rickhard.
“There’s lots of stuff happening on the label, and it’s growing all the time,” says Tore. “I would really recommend you to look out for the two albums by Helene Rickhard. The first came out on the 14th of November and the other one is coming in the spring.
“She is just an amazing producer. It’s introspective, fantastic electronic music, somewhere between electro, techno, house, disco, but super psychedelic. And it’s also very deep. It’s just simply fantastic.
“She is the biggest talent I’ve heard in many years. We’re really, really excited for those.”