As the Kings Of Convenience announced a few months ago on Instagram that they would soon be releasing a new album after a fabulous twelve year hiatus, one of the first commentators cheered: “Yeah! Exactly when we need it most!” Well, almost exactly. Actually, it could have been very useful during all the lockdown weeks. After all, nobody else makes music that fits so well with slowing down, for hiding, for hiding from the world.
The Kings Of Convenience are the poster boys for a generation that is constantly connected to the whole world online, but actually likes it more cozy at home. Music for the escape into the interior, but with a view of the world.
Of course, that was exactly what you could always blame them for. Escapist rustling for pale outsiders. Simon & Garfunkel for Scandinavian students. It started with the title of the debut, 20 years ago, “Quiet Is The New Loud”. Delicate, very delicate tones, even softer than cashmere blankets. Two bright voices, two acoustic guitars, now and then double bass and violin, the rhythm sometimes gentle samba, sometimes a cozy campfire. Crystals floating in the air. Anyone in a bad mood can call something like this feel-good music. But who is in a good mood, too. Music in which you feel comfortable. Yes wonderful, yes please!
The album was created over more than five years, recorded in five cities
When you speak to Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye on video to talk about their new album “Peace Or Love”, the two of them are sitting, and it’s almost a joke how exactly that fits, in a living room in the Norwegian town Mountains: brown wall in the background, pastel pictures, potted plants on the windowsill. Striped wool sweater. Like visiting one of their album covers. “We often hear accusations of courtesy,” says Øye. “Of course café owners like to say, oh, I’ll put on Kings Of Convenience, they don’t bother me. But well, we make friendly music, what could be wrong with that?”
Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Also applies to “Peace Or Love”. Eleven songs as if dabbed, the singing often just a breath, as if the two of them were singing at the window in the afternoon and not wanting to annoy neighbors. Singer songs, never too intense or, God forbid, loud. But what saves the two of them from the mindfulness corner: They always get the curve in time. The chords are too interesting for pure massage music, the two-part chants too sophisticated. And the supposed lightness is hard won. Keyword: a twelve year break. Some of the songs the two started ages ago, says Bøe, “but if you play a song over and over again in the studio and listen carefully, it somehow dissolves. Suddenly everything sounds stupid and banal”. And then? “Stop, let it lie, for as long as possible,” says Erlend Øye, “and only continue after months, as if you were starting something completely new. You have to outsmart yourself.” So the album was created over more than five years, recorded in a total of five cities.
The many places also has something to do with Øye’s restlessness. He is known as a DJ. And as a singer in other bands. He moved to Sicily years ago, but is still constantly traveling the world today. Plays with reggae bands in Europe, makes music with friends in South America. When the pandemic stuck him in Mexico last year, he spontaneously recorded an album with friends there.
Eirik Glambek Bøe is now at home in Bergen, has a family and occasionally teaches architectural psychology. You can’t equate artist and work, but please, in this case it’s true: The two are like their music, the music is like the two. At the same time a Norwegian open fire and red wine on the beach in Palermo. Relaxing at home and always having endless wanderlust.
So “Peace Or Love” (Universal) would have been the perfect soundtrack for Lockdown. But hurray, it fits the summer of sigh of relief as well. Sitting by the river, taking off your shoes, looking at the sky. No R-value, no vaccination center variant incidence of anything now. Peace. Love. It starts off a bit airy, with the guitar arpeggio of the first song “Rumors”, even a commercial for wellness hotels would not be wrongly accentuated. But it pays to be patient, to get in, to go along. Anyone who thinks that this is a lukewarm plucking when you first hear them is just as wrong as someone who is at Slayer thinks: All just aggressive thrashing. After a few seconds, Bøe starts singing, gently but firmly. Before they could go to the warm water pool in their slippers, the two of them spring away to the left in time, let air, leave room, let sounds fade away. Pause. Take a breath. Too Nordic-minded for unrestrained languishing. Too romantic for rigid nerdism.
Yes, this music is harmless. But she’s never stupid.
“Rumors” is then promptly not a bit hygge, but is about peer pressure and malicious fellow human beings. “They call you names”, Bøe sings, but: “Don’t let them tell you who you are.” Don’t let anyone tell you who you are. The wonderful Leslie Feist sings along with two of the songs, and together the three sound like a well-established ensemble. Peter, Paul & Mary for the 21st century. Because Bøe and Øye sing in English, the lyrics always have a lovable touch of dictionary poetry: “I lost count how many times I tumbled around inside your washing machine / Hung myself out to dry to regain some of my self esteem” ( “Washing Machine”).
How many people would you reach with Norwegian texts? No lle Såu
So the question is: why a foreign language at all? Answer Øye: “We speak very different dialects. We tried it, but when we sing in Norwegian, one of us always has to pretend.” In addition: “I can write a very personal text in English without feeling naked.” And then of course, please, the most important aspect that the two politely avoid: How many people in Chile, Calabria, Rio or Berlin would you reach with Norwegian texts? No lle Såu.
So “Peace Or Love” is a nice album again, and yet, yes, it comes exactly when we need it most of all. And yes, that’s right, the two are picking up exactly where they left off twelve years ago. But to try again with Slayer: Would you want a folk album from them? Just. There are bands – sometimes they are extremely loud, sometimes they are very, very quiet – they should please always do their thing. And now shoes off and down to the river.