It’s nearly that time of year again. Scandinavia’s biggest new music festival By:Larm is just around the corner, kicking off the a full programme of conferences and artist performances next week in Osl0. One of the notable things about By:Larm is that the artists themselves see it as a place to find new music, dropped into Oslo for a few days packed with shows by artists from other countries they’ve heard a lot about, a chance to catch the bands you’ve listened to for ages live for the first time, or discover new ones. So we thought the best way to preview the festival would be to ask an artist what they’re looking forward to seeing.
So we asked Stella Explorer. Also a member of dream-pop band Brödet, the Swedish artist has now stepped out as a solo artist, with a new project that takes on a more experiment sound, swerving from everything from trip-hop to retro disco in influence. She plays By:Larm on Friday, 22:30 at Pokalen and Saturday, 21:30 at Verkstedet, and before that we got her to pick out some highlights from the festival’s line-up.
Fabiana Palladino
My friend Charles (Professor Stranger) saw that she was coming to by:Larm and raved about her. He’s a massive Jai Paul fan [Paul is Palladino’s producer] and has been listening to her a lot. It didn’t sound like much else I hear nowadays, which I appreciate. I’m looking forward to seeing what she does live too.
Thursday, 22:00, Kulturkirken Jakob / Friday, 22:30, St Edmund’s Church
Nervosa
I would like to be on stage with them and dance a semi-choreographed dance to just try and match their energy. The drummer makes me want to forget everything I’ve learned in life so far and put all of that newfound energy into drumming.
Bella Boo
Is It Rude To Wear My Shades is the coolest songs I have heard in years. I am generally bad at listening to new music because there is a ton of it and it stresses me out. When I find something I like I will listen exclusively to it for a year. Like this song.
Saturday, 00:00-02:00 (Saturday Night), The Villa
Athletic Progression
I’ve seen some live videos of these dudes which is the craziest thing I’ve seen in a while. It’s like funky hiphop-jazz with three people and they are all wizards at their instruments so you’re kind of constantly a little mind-blown. It was all very appealing. They must get very sweaty.
Friday, 21:30, Pokalen / Saturday, 22:30, Blå
Morabeza Tobacco
Go see them because they are my talented friends and Vanilla [singer] is my favourite DJ.
Thursday, 21:00, Ingensteds / Friday, 23:30, Rockefeller
By:Larm 2020, Feb 27-29, Oslo. For more see bylarm.no