Of Norway drops 60 minutes of adventurous dance music…
For more than 15 years, Of Norway has been the joint project of Vegard “Lil’ Wolf” Dyvik and Christian Steenstrup. Emerging from Oslo’s fertile underground, the duo have developed a sound that sits somewhere between house, electro, techno and dub, often coloured by darker textures and leftfield influences.
Their productions move comfortably between warm, hypnotic grooves and colder, more atmospheric terrain, drawing on everything from disco and electro to industrial and experimental sounds.
Their most recent release on Last Night On Earth alongside Sentre, encapsulates their sound: fun, care-free dance music that never takes itself too serious. That ability to produce a variegated sound has seen support from DJs across a wide spectrum, from Dixon to Sasha to Timo Maas and more.
On this Balance Selections mix, the duo stay true to form with a playful one-hour session. Featuring tracks from Eden Burns, Mark Henning, Tata Box Inhibitors and more, the mix connects classic and contemporary cuts with an ease that never feels forced.
Tracklist
1. Of Norway – Liquid Velvet
2. Throbbing Gristle – Hamburger Lady (Amor Fati Edit)
3. Second Hand Satellites – Orbit 1.3
4. Eden Burns – Invercargill
5. Mala – Anti War Dub
6. Jared Wilson – Ghost Miners 9
7. Of Norway – Halcyonastic
8. A Sagittariun – Microdreaming
9. DJ Arne L II – Assimilation
10. Tata Box Inhibitors – Plasmids (Placid Mix)
11. Cromby – Retribution (DeFeKT Remix)
12. Mark Henning – Trojan
Name: Chris & Vegard
Location: Oslo / Norway
Alias/Producer name: Of Norway
Labels affiliated with: Connaisseur, Bedrock, Sum Over Histories, Last Night On Earth, Flores, Hope, Rebirth, My Favourite Robot, Darkroom Dubs, Watergate etc.
Mostly Postens Sommerkassett, and whatever happened to be on the radio. Postens Sommerkassett was a yearly mixtape released every summer by the Norwegian Postal Service.
Pretty much every ’80s kid in Norway has some relationship with it. The tapes combined music with comedy skits, featuring both national and international pop artists.
In our teens we began drifting down slightly different paths. Chris gravitated toward hardcore and punk-related genres, while Vegard became deeply involved in the Amiga computer demo scene and the music surrounding it.
Vegard: Not really a musical house hold, I just remember my dad being into Bruce Springsteen. Also growing up in a small city, fresh music inspirations were hard to come by.
Chris: My parents listened to a lot of music, and had a decent record collection. The first album to catch my attention was Roxy Music Flesh & Blood, which explains my love of delay and reverb.
Vegard: When I heard Koto ‘Visitors’ used as a sample in a computer demo.
Chris: For me it was Bomb The Bass ‘Into The Dragon’
Both: We both got overly exited about Chillout Zone on MTV.
Vegard: I was about 15 or 16 when I went to my first party. It was an illegal mini rave in the small town where I grew up.
There were no famous DJs, just friends playing music on vinyl and stationary computers using FastTracker.
Chris: Mine was at a teen disco called Bjørneparken Ungdomsklubb, where the DJ played Italo disco and Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers, which I really enjoyed at the time.
I remember hearing that Jive Bunny had lived in Norway for a while, which we thought was pretty cool.
Both: Anything from Axel Boman to Axel F, to be honest. Most of our inspiration still comes from the ’90s and 2000s. Those were our formative years.
Vegard: To be honest, my favourite musicians since an early age have been Iron Maiden, especially the era when they started introducing synthesisers.
I was mesmerised by the arpeggios, the melodies and the artwork on the covers.
Chris: As someone who works with music 24/7, both in my day job and as a nighttime pursuit, this changes almost hourly.
But right now it’s Joy Division. I love the production, the atmosphere, the lyrics and the artwork.
Both: Outside of music, we’re mostly inspired by everyday things: love, loss, politics, food, rave documentaries, funny words, strange sounds and random pieces of music we hear during the day.
The small and big moments that make up life.
The last album I bought was Aevestaden’s Ingen Mere Gråter. I heard a track on the Norwegian radio station NRK P2 and immediately loved it.
It’s a kind of hypnotic, modern electronic folk music drawing on traditions from Norway and Sweden.
Production setup: Our production setup is centred around Steinberg Nuendo, with a rotating selection of hardware. The studio is quite small, so we can’t have everything connected at once.
On the synth side we usually have one or two Elektron boxes hooked up, and the Moog Minitaur is used frequently.
On our upcoming album we’ve also made good use of the Behringer 808 clone, along with Maschine+ for beats and sketches. And of course there’s a range of VST instruments, mainly from Arturia and Softube.
For audio processing we rely on some hardware that stays permanently connected: Klark Pultec clones, a Drawmer 1976 Saturator, a Gyraf SSL G-Comp clone, Elektron Analog Heat, plus 1176 and LA-2A clones, which end up on almost every production.
Alongside that we use plenty of VST effects, and the final mixdown is always done through the Softube Console 1 system.
Live setup: Our live setup has changed quite a lot over the years, so we haven’t settled on a single configuration yet.
At the moment we’re considering using the Akai Force as the centre of the system, alongside a few synths and the Torso T-1 for improvisation.
DJ setup: Fairly standard, with a mix of vinyl and digital. We buy and play both formats, and after 30 years of DJing we still have plenty of older records that we enjoy working into our sets.
We’d like to mention our latest studio album as Of Norway, titled Tropenatt, will be released on Connoisseur this summer.
It’s the third and final installment in our Norwegian Summer trilogy.
We also have a track coming up on Suleyman Records, which has the honour of opening the Balance Mix, also due out this summer.
The album has taken up a lot of our time, so we’re now looking forward to focusing on single releases and exploring new horizons.
Our next gigs are at Jaeger Oslo (in March) and our very own early evening club concept Afternooners at Gehør also in Oslo.
The mix was recorded using two Pioneer XDJs and two 1210s through an Allen & Heath Xone mixer.
The recording itself was a simple one-take mix, though the tracklist took some time to plan, as we wanted to include a balance of new material, obscure older tracks and a few curveballs, much like our DJ sets.
Standout moments for us include the Amor Fati edit of a Throbbing Gristle track, the Mala classic Anti War Dub, and the slightly cheesy pitched-down trance cut Assimilation by DJ Arne L II.
Vegard:
Chris:
Vegard: The Royal Tenenbaums
Chris: Kinds of Kindness
Vegard: Arrested Development
Chris: Charterfeber
Vegard: Champagne / France
Chris: Catalonia / Spain
