Description
Årabrot have recently finished recording their most astounding piece of True Norwegian Art Rock to date; “Who Do You Love”.
As a tastemaker for this long-anticipated successor to 2016’s critically acclaimed „The Gospel“ album, the band is unleashing 2 tracks of the upcoming album up front, as an exclusive RECORD STORE DAY release… which coincidentally falls on the same date as their performance at ROADBURN FESTIVAL on April 21st.
Årabrot‘s sonic spectrum has always been a wide and wild field of purposeful mismatches, a world of friction between the noisy, the disharmonic, the tension, and rivalling moments of harmonic relief. But there is more than noise rock to Årabrot’s formula.. there is „a dark, velveteen grace which feels derived from both pop and cabaret songwriting“ (The Quietus). „I’m interested in feelings, either the very silent or the extremely noisy“, band leader Kjetil Nernes comments. „I don’t care about what’s in between, the middle of the road isn’t my thing. The bible fits really well with that. I’m using it thematically all of the time.“
It comes as no surprise that the singer and guitar player has established himself in a former church in the woods of Dalarna in rural Sweden, where he lives with his wife, piano player and singer Karin Park, and where his band now rehearses and records, surrounded by pianos, organs and hundreds of old bibles that the church left behind when the congregation stopped. The clerical environment has proven to be an excellent creative tapestry for a band whose lyrical focus orbits around sex, death and defiance.
Kjetil Nernes has made his own first hand experience with the topics he sings about. He was diagnosed with malignant throat cancer in 2014, in the middle of a tour. Instead of heading in for surgery right away, the band finished a full European tour first. „Every night of that tour was like the last show ever“, Nernes comments. „It was really strange. When a doctor calls and says, ‘you’re terribly sick’, it’s surreal. You go into this phase where life is more vivid and more real, in a weird way. We’ve done so many shows through the years and sometimes it’s a little like going to the factory to do a job. But with an axe hanging over your head you perceive the world differently.“
After successfully recovering from cancer, Årabrot are now stronger than ever. The band has collaborated with procuders like Billy Anderson and Steve Albini, and musicians like Ted Parsons (Killing Joke/Swans), Sunn O))))’s Stephen O’Malley, and Kvelertak’s Erlend Hjelvik. They have composed music for silent movies like “Die Niebelungen” and “Doctor Caligari”, and have teamed up with The Quietus- founder John Doran on his spoken word tour. The previous full-length album “The Gospel”, was named “Album of the Year” in The Quietus. Get yourself ready to face the big question, to be dropped in September: WHO DO YOU LOVE?
