Jogeir and Katrine of Norwegian prog rock sensation Kalandra sit down with Jameson in Nordic Sound 73 to discuss their new studio album, The Other Side.
In this episode, the songwriting duo walk us through the writing process for The Other Side which conceptually drew from the band taking up dream journaling. From their press release:
Determining the theme before writing began, the band started 'dream journalling': jotting down their nocturnal visions and working them into songs. "It's been very helpful to write down my dreams," affirms singer Katrine. "It definitely affected how I wrote lyrics. I would love to do this again, have some sort of loose concept, it brings the record together."
"Knowing the theme was dreaming was helpful to me musically too," adds guitarist Florian. "We could have these dreamy effects in there. I feel most of the songs have nightmarish or dreamy parts, one way or another. There are still a lot of different themes here though, there's folklore, current events, introspective stuff, life and death... Everything can fit into dreams lyrically speaking, it's just life, it's all-encompassing."
Beyond talking about the album itself, Katrine and Jogeir also reflect on their journey as a band and the motivations behind making their own studio space for a more free creative process.
The back half of the episode is dedicated to the highly contested yet evergreen AI “Nordic Folk” debate which Jameson and Katrine both became involved with in the social media sphere over the summer. Jogeir offers his perspectives regarding the difference between folk music in the Americana sense and the Norwegian folkemusikk, before spelling a eulogy for the concept of genre altogether in the age of AI.