Norwegian Giants release ‘Fasan’ – an immensely diverse collaboration album
‘Fasan’ by Norwegian Giants is released on their own label Norwegian Giants, established in 2015. Their goal is to gather all kinds of vocalists and instrumentalists all over the globe to create new types of music and exciting combinations and variations, their motto being: We don´t follow trends, only our hearts!
(By our Norwegian correspondent Jan Ronald Stange) “Fasan” by Norwegian Giants is released on their own label Norwegian Giants, established in 2015. Tarjei Krogh is the main producer, having his wingmen Joakim DenGode and Markus Storm by his side. Their goal is to gather all kinds of vocalists and instrumentalists all over the globe to create new types of music and exciting combinations and variations, their motto being: We don´t follow trends, only our hearts!
Tarjei told us more about the project via chat and e-mail.
Side-Line: There’s a lot of collaborations on this album – care to take us through song by song, telling it’s story and who participated?
Tarjei Krogh: ‘Hello Aloha’ is a collaboration with a great Norwegian sound designer and artist, Continental Fruit. He is very into modular electronic equipment, which is easy to hear in his other releases available on various platforms. He tweaked one of our older tracks into something new and made it more refreshing.
‘Good God’ is a collaboration with Kim Castle and Lisa Rockfield, two vocalists and producers we will collaborate with more in the future. They have such open minds and have been producing rap songs, rock and lots of various electronica.
‘Mhmhm‘. Ten years ago I met this amazing young jazz singer/songwriter Renate Rubini. She had a significant voice reminding me of Janis Joplin, but a softer version of that. It took some years to make her like my electronic tracks, but we ended up recording lots of songs and are actually nearly ready with an album. You can find two of our earlier tracks on Spotify and two videos on YouTube if you look up “Cupid Rubini”.
‘You‘ is a collaboration with the brilliant talented Norwegian singer/songwriter Hanne Haugsand, also known as Tundra Mode and Psykosister. She has also been involved with Kant Kino and Anstalt, has participated in the Eurovision Song Contest and been on several big tv-shows in Norway. And the weird thing is, I have only met her two times. One of the times was when Nitzer Ebb and Skinny Puppy played live in Rockefeller, Oslo. Even took a picture of her and Ogre!
‘Shelter‘. Manuela Hofer is a digital artist and has a voice that stands out from the crowd. I was originally remixing a track with her ten years ago, and asked her to send me some vocals and ended up pasting her in on an older track . I met Isak Rypdal in my early 20’s and he was supposed to join our band Anstalt at that time, but we ended up being friends instead. I’ve been remixing his band Electro Spectre back in the days, and I just had to cut out some of their vocals to combine them with Manuela. I have never met Manuela in person, so thank God for the internet!
‘Here we go again‘. Some years ago I shared an office with the best rap managers in Norway. One of these guys had a girlfriend named Lisa who was very into electronic music, and we started sharing music online. This could have been a great collaboration, but we totally lost contact, telephone numbers and email. Luckily I got 4 vocals and just had to release the first one. Never met her either.
‘Move on‘. I met Elvebakk at a barbeque on our peninsula Nesodden, right outside of Oslo. We ended up discussing music and I was surprised he loved stuff like Thom Yorke, The Cure and Joy Division. A very kind being with a rich taste in music. He sent me some of his own stuff and I loved the characteristics in his voice. Strangely we ended up with a dance track. I hope to get him to participate in some downtempo stuff in the future.
‘Perpetual‘ is a dive into what always will be a big part of me, Electronic Body Music and Synth Pop. I tried many different vocalists on this track, but ended up keeping it almost instrumental. I used a lot of analog and some modular equipment on this one. It is one of my own favourites. I guess less is more sometimes.
S-L: What’s the connection between this album and all the Norwegian Beats releases on Spotify?
TK: Norwegian Beats was a way to inspire vocalists to contribute to our future releases. We have made 20 collections so far, but will in the future focus mainly on releasing our “real” albums. ‘Fasan’ is our first real album and the beats are up for grabs for anyone to contribute, so we can include new artists on our future releases. Norwegian Giants is supposed to be a mix of a label and a band – a big collective where anything is possible. Like if you combined Röyksopp, Gorillaz or Massive Attack with Mute Records and Ninja Tune. Maybe a bit outdated references, but these are the best examples that comes to mind when concerning brilliant work.
S-L: More releases ahead or other plans?
TK: We are doing things backwards, so we are now gonna make three EPs with remixes, radio versions and videos for three of the songs on the album ‘Fasan’. We also have a new album almost ready to be released early in 2022 named ‘1969’. We will also continue to search and find new artists to collaborate with in Norway and in Europe as well. And set sails like the vikings before us.
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