Norweigian experimental-pop project, Sturle Dagsland shares his new single “Dreaming”.
Sturle Dagsland, the project of the acclaimed Norwegian experimental-pop/Avant-rock singer is sharing the celestial new single "Dreaming".
This new track is the latest to be lifted from the self-titled debut album which is set for release on February 5, 2021. Sturle Dagsland will also be opening for Finnish group, Oranssi Pazuzu, across Europe in Spring 2021.
Together with his brother Sjur, Sturle seeks to create an expressive ever-changing soundscape that shifts from the ethereal and beautiful to the wild and abrasive; the upcoming record looks to demonstrate this through an array of instrumentation cut alongside Dagsland’s adventurous blend of different vocal techniques, primal screams and otherworldly, occasionally angelic, pop melodies.
"Dreaming" plays on some of the album's more ethereal, liminal soundscapes, threading Sturle's breathtaking and introspective voice through drifting sounds and delicate acoustic guitar. Whereas previous singles such as "Kusanagi" and "Waif" highlighted some of the brothers' primal influences and sounds, "Dreaming" sits firmly as the cornerstone of the more serene sonics that the pair explore.
"The first idea of "Dreaming" came to life during a stay at a lighthouse on a sparsely populated
island in the North Sea,"
explains Dagsland.
"While composing the first draft of "Dreaming" we experimented with a combination of different orchestral instruments in the brass, woodwind, and string family in tandem with South American flutes, soft acoustic guitars, and an underlying atmospheric soundscape.
It transitions and drifts between folk music and submersed choirs drained in reverb and
tranquility."
Hailing from Stavanger, a city in Southwest Norway known for its fish, oil, and historic Viking battlegrounds, Sturle and his brother started working together in a creative format eight years ago, with the pair possessing a desire and aptitude to create a unique sort of music and to do this, use a vast assemblage of different instruments.
The record, testament to its truly authentic sound, features everything from a guzheng (a Chinese plucked instrument) to a mbira (Zimbabwe finger harp), a custom-made Norwegian billy goat horn, Armenian duduk, autoharp, African kalimba, marxophone (fretless zither) and nyckelharpa (Swedish fiddle used on the track after the same name), this eclectic sonic platform is matched and pushed further with Sturle’s voice: a blistering, uncompromising whirlwind of sound which carries an intensity that ebbs and flows, shifting frequently in dynamic and what it tries to provide.
The project’s distinctive sonic palette has found the band – which often incorporates up to five members onstage – perform not only at prestigious international festivals such as Tallinn Music Week, Iceland Airwaves, Sled Island and SXSW, but also alongside the likes of Big Thief – the project’s first US show was opening for them in Brooklyn – interspersed with performances at LGBTQ porn festivals in Berlin, sex parties in Brighton and grand, philharmonic halls in Russia.
Although mostly recorded in their hometown of Stavanger where the brothers have their own studio, they put together different segments across Europe absorbing the various landscapes to inspire the record too; these ranged from remote cabins in the Norwegian mountaintops to abandoned industrial estates in Russia, Soviet Navy ships in Eastern Europe and a remote lighthouse on a small island in the North Sea.
“Making music is a flexible multifaceted formula, and the way you cook it, and what ingredients you put in can differ from song to song,”
explains Sturle when speaking about the record.
“We are trying to be in a constant process of creating music, rather than waiting to absorb inspiration from somewhere else, but inspiration may come from anywhere, both from music, nature, dreams,
art, life, and the subconscious.”
Wild, expressive, and truly idiosyncratic, the long-awaited debut album from one of Norway’s most innovative and experimental talents will be released on February 5, 2020.
Pre-order here