According to Dagbladet, Migrant is this year's 20th best norwegian records!

Morten

Summer's not over yet. Øya starts with the traditional club night tomorrow, and we will be playing outside Internasjonalen at 20.00. Before that, we're doing an acoustic mini-show for the St. Thomas Minnefond at Sub Scene. See you there, and then we'll see you at Øya.

We have most of our plans for the summer ready. It goes a little something like this:

14.5.: En gledens dag, Fossnes

16.5.: Camp Indie, Rockefeller

3.6.: Working Class Hero, Union Scene, Drammen

16.6.: Kampen bistro, Oslo

7.7.: Stavernfestivalen

8.7.: Trænafestivalen

Another great review of "Migrant", this time in magazine Spirit.

We have reached the top of the scale, in Romerikes Blad!

Great review in Dagbladet!

Morten

Our third album "Migrant", out in the real world, ready to be bought by you:

Platekompaniet
CDON
iTunes

It is also available in streaming services:

Spotify
Wimp

In addition, Musikknyheter.no has posted a great review, and the album has been chosen "Album of the week" by Studentradioen i Bergen.

Good times.

Morten

On march 11., we will release our third album, "Migrant". We will have a release party and concert on John Dee March 9. Looking forward to seeing you there.

The beautiful cover photograph to the right was taken by Mona Moe Machawa, and the elegant design was performed by Karen Fonk.

The track list is as follows:

1. Hope (Advice For Travellers)
2. Reach Agadez
3. Plans
4. Carry Me Safe
5. It's A Long Way
6. Migrant
7. Rumours
8. Royalty
9. Leaving Lagos
10. When The Sun Rises
11. Those Who Could Not Go On

Morten

We regret to inform you that we have had to cancel our show at Blindern next Tuesday.

The birth of our guitarist Geir's second offspring is long overdue and now very imminent. Even if he is irreplaceable, we try to arrange some sort of replacement for him, but neither time or personal schedules seemed to be on our side. We are very sorry, and truly hope that UKA will find a good replacement.

Morten

We have two shows coming up in the following weeks. We are equally excited to be opening for Major Parkinson at Rockefeller and playing at the main stage at student festival "Uka på Blindern":

January 26.: Rockefeller, opening for Major Parkinson
February 1.: Uka på Blindern

We are also in the process of booking some concerts around the time when we release the album. March that is. Dates and places coming soon.

And I had a small talk the other day about the strange fate of our fantastic video, and modern day hit lists, with a journalist from ballade.no. Read it here.

Morten

I should think this is the appropriate time to repost this:

The single, "Royalty" is now available in digital shops and streaming services:

Platekompaniet
iTunes
Wimp

We're still waiting for Spotify to come around...

And if you're wondering what to get for that special one for christmas, The Captain & Me is now an option. You have to be a little lucky, but head over to Sangløftet, and enter the competition to win a concert with us, to give away (or keep for yourself).

Morten

Good news! We received the final master of the first single from our coming album. The single is named "Royalty" and we are quite excited about it. We are currently doing our best to get the single pushed to all available digital channels as fast as humanly possible. So look out!

Morten

We had a wonderful time last weekend, returning to the Kennel Connects festival at Soria Moria, and we will be playing next Saturday (or, technically, Sunday - it's giond to be that late) at Larvik Kulturnatt. Looking forward to that.

We are also currently listening through raw mixes of the 15 songs recorded for the new album. It's hard work, and everything takes more time than we thought and hoped it would, but we should have them reduced to 10-12 songs, mixed, mastered, added a beautiful cover design and sent it to the printer some time in December or January. So have patience, dear friends.

Morten

Temperatures are creeping to a barely acceptable level in Oslo, and we can announce our little string of concerts for the summer:

July 3: Bygdalarm, Øystese
July 10: Vaffelføzz, Drammen
August 10: Klubbdagen, Øya, Gamla (newly added!)
August 14: Camp Indie, Øya, Oslo

See you there!

Just checking in to post some things, as its been too long. We are busy recording odds and ends for the album, as well as writing the lyrics, so the updates on this page suffers. But we are still alive and kicking; the talented Andreas Løwe laid down some fantastic piano some weeks back, and tomorrow we are recording marimba at Oslo Concert Hall. Looking forward to that.

I'm currently too lazy to upload them here too, but over at our Facebook page, there is an album of photos from the Vinstra sessions, where we laid down most of the tracks for the album.

In March, we were chosen artist of the month by Net Emergence, a French site that aims to promote new music to new people through sharing, beating of drums and other socio-high-technological means. There was also an interview. Since our tiny moments of French net-fame, Net Emergence has chosen a new artist for April, Phillious Williams, and is (as I understand) accepting suggestions for artists for May. Our invitation to the people of France is still valid: Invite us, and we'll be there.

We will be announcing some concerts for this summer shortly, I'm just going to let the arrangers have the chance to announce us according to their own (well planned, I assume) media strategy.

Morten

Big news! Tomorrow morning we are leaving to start recording our third album!

The sessions will take place in a cabin way up in the mountains near Vinstra, and we are staying there until next Sunday. As opposed to the last time, when we recorded most of the album in a proper studio, we are doing it all by ourselves this time (that is, our trusted producer Andreas Eide Larsen will be joining us). We have rented all the equipment we need, and are packing our bags full of percussion and cables.

Even and I have been writing songs for the album all fall and winter, and we have 15 songs more or less ready to record. This time we have even rehearsed with Roger, the drummer, and Aleks, the bassist, in advance. So this should be good.

There is no internet connection where we are going, but we'll post a report once we're back. I will try to keep you updated through Facebook, using my phone.

See you in February, at club:Larm, Dattera til Hagen.

Morten

These are strange times, indeed. Our lovely video for "Happy New Year" will be played on a restaurant TV network in fast food restaurants across the USA during new year's holiday. They claim to have 10-12 million monthly viewers.

As a result of this, it looks like "Leave Your Friends And Family" will be released in the US very soon! The album is already available digitally from Amazon, and from what I'm told, it's also available through iTunes in the US. But CDs should be available soon.

We are infinitely (or convergently to, at least) grateful to Kikk film and Iram Haq for producing and directing this little masterpiece:

Also, Even and I have spent this autumn writing songs for a new album. We currently have 10-15 songs ready (all with la-de-da lyrics, for the time being), and are planning to start recording late January/early February. As usual, Andreas Eide Larsen will help out with production and mix. The album is planned for release in august 2010.

Morten

Thank you all for voting for us!

Apparently, there were enough of you to get us into the finals. That means that we'll be playing together with Rakija, Eplemøya Songlag and Ivan Mazuze Group at Blå November 4. Make sure to be there.

(On the other hand, I would also like to recommend Staff Benda Bilili, who play at Rockefeller the same day. Hrmf.)

Again, thank you!

Morten

 We have reached the semifinal in a contest to play at Oslo World Music Festival (and there's cash involved too!). Please do us a favour and vote for us here:

http://www.rikskonsertene.no/no/Oslo-World-Music-Festival/Debut09/Stem-her/

Thank you!

Morten

We fondly remember our last show at Samfundet in Trondheim, when the floor was threatening to give in to all the people jumping up and down. That was back in 2006 at the "Knaus" stage. Now we're finally coming back, but this time we're playing the bigger "Klubben" stage. We're sharing the bill with Alaska in Winter (who I sadly don't know anything about), and it's sure to be a fine evening in moustache city.

http://www.samfundet.no/arrangement/vis/625

Morten

It seems our site had a small breakdown a couple of days ago. Sorry about that. I have moved everything to a new location, upgraded to newer versions of just about everything, and am hoping it will keep stable.

Before the show at Slottsfjell, we were kindly invited by NRK Lydverket to record a song acoustically, in their "Lydverket spanderer" series. The rain was flooding the area, and all plans had to be re-thought, but we found some kind of a solution. The sound is a bit so-so here and there, due partly to the fact that we were way too many people and instruments for their set up, partly to the room, and partly to my microphone falling to the floor in the beginning of the shoot.

But it turned out quite fun, I think:

There is also a mention of the Slottsfjell gig at Nö Music (they got the band who performs our intro song wrong, though).

Morten

Because we are nice people, we have made three songs from "Leave Your Friends And Family" available for absolutely free and legal download at the music section. "See The Sun" and "Happy New Year", both in radio edits, along with "Roadhouse By The Sea". Rejoice!

Oh, and if you're in the area, make sure to see us play at Vikedal Rootsfestival and Slottsfjell festival the coming days and weeks.

Rockeweb has just posted a review of "Leave Your Friends And Family", written by "Rock Engh Roll" (hence the title), giving us five out of six guitars. Better late than never, at least when he's so nice to us.

Morten

Our friend Kjetil Gudem once again stepped up and snapped quite a few shots of us at John Dee on Friday. And they are nothing but fantastic! Then again, it was a fantastic night, so why shouldn't they be?

Also, we're playing in Even's and Bosse's home town Larvik, at Café Passagen, July 3.

Morten

Yes, we're coming to Bergen tomorrow. Hulen, to be precise, and we are very much looking forward to coming back. We haven't played in Bergen since we supported Saint Thomas at Kvarteret. 

They charge 110,- at the door, and there's a band called Oh Little Sangman supporting us. They'll probably start around 10-10.30. Be there, we will.

And then, on Friday, we're back in Oslo, at John Dee. It's almost like a mini-tour. This time our good friend Einar Stenseng and his band will be supporting.

See you there

Morten, humming that old John Martyn song:
Over the hill
He-hey, hey, over the hill

Our itinerary for the summer is starting to fill up:

June 4: Hulen, Bergen
June 5: John Dee, Oslo (tickets)
July 9: Vikedal Rootsfestival
July 18: Slottsfjell festival

...and there's more to come

Also, our fabulous video has been picked to screen at the Norwegian Short Film festival in Grimstad this summer. Hurray for Iram! Her short film, "Skylappjenta" is also appearing, and it features music by Even (with some autoharp noodling by me).

Morten

It has come to my attention that the good people over at Musikkoperatørene, our distributor, has managed to get Leave Your Friends And Family onto Spotify.

(In case you don't know, Spotify is the new "sliced bread" in music these days. Easy, legal, free, everybody's talking about it, and since it now also features The Captain & Me, it has everything you want. (Ehrm, we're working on getting Automata on there too.) Ask your friends (and family) for an invite.)

It may seem a bit late, but popmatters.com has just published a very thorough and flattering feature from Bylarm a couple of months back. On page 4, there's a nice mention of us, and even a picture. There are even more pictures in the gallery.

Morten

Another nice review of Leave Your Friends And Family can be found at livecity.no.

Morten

 I think of myself as an apt googler. On one of my raids, I came across a review at German site Nordishe Musik. My school German isn't all that great, so I didn't understand that much. But I enlisted my girlfriend (who teaches German) to translate, and it seems like a nice review.

I've uploaded some photos from the release party (taken by our friend Kjetil Gudem), to the enjoyment of those of you who came too late to get in and those of you who were stuck in the back.

Morten

Norway's finest reviewers of music, groove.no, has published a very thorough, precise and very nice review of the album:

Jorda rundt på 47 minutt (5/7)

(And this brings back the slightly absurd feeling when linking to all these norwegian reviews and newspaper articles, whilst writing english. Especially when linking to something as well written as this. I know that around 90-95% of the visitors to this site are norwegian, but we don't want to drive away those who don't understand the language. There's of course the option to publish everything on both languages, but I just can't find the time. So I guess I'll just keep on keepin' on.)

Slottsfjell festival, were we played in 2006, has announced our participation for this summer. They have us listed as one of "the best of By:larm", and says that our show last Saturday was "impossible not to like". Things like this always warms our hearts. We will also be playing Vikedal rootsfestival the week before Slottsfjell. And there's more to come.

Morten

In case you don't know, Bylarm is a cattle show, a chance for more or less awkward mingling, and race for attention for quite a few bands (and some of them quite good). But it's also a festival. In other words bands playing music for fans, would-be-fans and their reluctant friends.

We played two shows: At the rather tiny blues club Herr Nilsen late Tthursday night, and at Dagbladet-teltet Saturday night, the main stage/tent that was put up for the occasion. Both were very good and fun, but also very different experiences. Naturally, the second show was the one that gained just a tiny bit of attention:

www.musikknyheter.no
www.furoreiharare.no

Also, our record is now out on iTunes!

Morten

Yes! We will be playing in Dagbladet-teltet (pronounced "dahblahtelteh") tonight at 21.00. If you don't have the opportunity to be there in the traditional corporeal way, you can just tune in to Dagbladets streaming service and enjoy. Oh, the wonders of modern technology never cease to amaze me.

The reviews for the album have started ticking in:

Lydverket 5/6
Aftenposten 4/6

Also, Iram's fabulous video has gained some well-earned attention:

Musikknyheter.no (one of "This week's songs")
730.no
No Music ("The new Macarena!")
Lydverket again
cucharasonica.com (I don't really understand what it says)

The video has (as of this writing) been viewed more than 1200 times in about a day and a half! And somebody seems to think that it sounds/looks "very peruvian"...

I would recommend going to YouTube and clicking the "watch in HD"-link. It looks so much better.

Morten, slightly euphoric

PS: In case you wondered: Yes, this site was unavailable for most of the day. According to the guys hosting it, dealing with computers is tricky sometimes.

Lo and behold! T'is the video for "Happy New Year"!

It was directed by Iram Haq and produced by Kikk film. We are ever grateful for the work they have done.

The records arrived in the nick of time, thursday afternoon. We got hold of a bunch of them yesterday, just hours before we had to get ready for the release party at Dattera. They look (and sound) amazing!

We filled the first floor of Dattera to the absolute maximum yesterday, and had a great time. Everything was nice, everybody were beautiful and the universe was in total harmony with The Captain & Me. Thank you!

The record will be in stores on monday, and we will probably have a video out at around the same time.

As you may have noticed, this site has undergone a facelift. Enjoy the robotic fantasticness!

We have had a busy week. Monday and Tuesday were spent at Harrys Gym studio, finishing up the mixes with Andreas Eide Larsen. Harrys Gym turned out to be a really cozy DIY kind of place in Lodalen in Oslo, run by fantastically good people. (They have a more or less homemade, motorized plate reverb unit mounted above the kitchen door!) Only trouble is, when we work with Andreas, we know it's going to be late. We closed the door behind us (and said goodbye to a really, really sleepy Emil Nikolaisen) at 5 Wednesday morning. And both Even and I had to go to work the next day. (Or should I say the same day? These things always confuse me.) Wednesday wasn't a very productive day.

But Thursday was. We headed down to Engine Ears mastering studio 7 in the morning to master the album with Chris Sansom. The hours spent there were at the same time very efficient and quite fun. And mastering is an art form that borders on the magic. I can never tell exactly what these people actually do, or what kind of strange machines the sound is run through, but somehow everything sounds so much better in the end.

Then we rushed off to drop the master and the artwork off at the printer's, and then in the evening we gathered the vocal part of the band for what we call a "choir rehearsal". So now there's not much more to do than wait. And get ready for the release party!

Oh, and yes, that's the cover design you see there. It was made by Geir Lysbakken.

Morten

Bring your friends and family to the release party for "Leave Your Friends And Family" at Dattera til Hagen february 13.! CC: 50,-

We promise it will be fun and exciting!

We had an encounter with Mr. Reality the other day, and he told us: "Boys, you won't make it". Like always, he was right.

So we've had to postpone the album release until February 16. But that is the final date! I promise!

And here are some facts about the album: It is called "Leave Your Friends And Family". It has a cover (which will soon be posted) designed by Geir Solem Lysbakken, and some photography by Anders Røren (also to be posted). It is produced by Even, me and Andreas Eide Larsen. Even and I played most ove the instruments as usual, but had the help of the following kind souls:

Aleksander Haugen: Upright and electric bass
Alexander Bosrup Karlsen: Tenor saxophone
Robin Sohrabi-Shiraz: Soprano saxophone and clarinet
Geir Pedersen: Electric guitar
Frode Bjørnstad: Pedal steel guitar
Jonas Vemøy: Trumpet
Tarjei Midtgaard: Tin flute
Jørgen Tangen Bendikssen: Violin
Therese Aune: Guest vocals

And then finally, the tracklist:

1. Saddle Up Your Horses
2. Happy New Year
3. Outside The City Gates
4. See The Sun
5. Give Up
6. William Mason’s Summer
7. Roadhouse By The Sea
8. Franz Mesmer
9. Your Mamas Too
10. Carny Boy
11. Samarkand

We're working on a time and place for a release concert, I'll keep you posted.

Morten

We had the pleasure of welcoming a video journalist from TV Vestfold into our studio (aka Even's bedroom) last week, and the result has been published:

http://tb.no/vf24_player.php?show=vfpuls&id=5522

Quite fun, and it should be possible to hear a bit of Happy New Year from the new record somewhere in there.

Yes, we do. The new record (probably called "Leave Your Friends And Family" will be released on Movemountains and distributed through Musikkoperatørene January 26!

Oh, and I think I have forgot to mention that we will play By:larm in Oslo in February. Check it out (raw mixes of two new songs!).

Kennel Connects starts tomorrow, and we will be closing the ordeal late Saturday night, only followed by the eminent DJ Kreismyr. I'm sure we'll all have loads of fun.

In these circumstances, Even I, plus the festival management were interviewed by Journalen, a net paper published by journalism students in Oslo. Paving the way for future stardom, so to speak. Read it here.

The St. Thomas tribute/best of record is in the stores monday, and I would like to point you in the direction of a review in Dagsavisen this week. (As usual, they stay ahead of and above the pack.) Also, there will be a commemorative evening/concert at Mono coming Friday. I'm not certain of the exact progression of the evening, but it seems we will be able to hear most of the songs that are covered by various artists on the record. Next friday is (not so coincidentally) World Mental Health Day, and the procedings from both this evening and the record will go to The Norwegian Council for Mental Health.

In about a month - November 1, to be exact - we will play a festival being held at Soria Moria in Oslo called Kennel Connects. I'm sure it will be fun, and by then I hope most of the specifics about our new record will be sorted out. More about that later.

It's been about a year since we started systematically working on the album, and about five months since we started recording, but as of sunday evening, we are finished recording our second album.

Not too surprisingly, it became a giant project. We have played all the instruments we could get our hands on, and recruited some fine musicians to help us out when our abilities fell short. Some of the songs have more vocal tracks than most people have socks. I won't disclose too much about the contents, but suffice to say that we are very pleased with the outcome, and very excited to hear what our valiant mixer Andreas can make it sound like. He has magic fingers.

We spent last night making raw mixes that will now serve as bait for record companies as we go fishing. Come, fishy fishy.

I am also pondering some kind of pre-listening of the album on this site once it is mixed and mastered. We'll see what the future brings.

Morten

The news about the tribute to Saint Thomas is finally out, and the tracklisting can be found at Dagbladet.

The observing reader will notice that we're contributing a version of "Moviestar", from Thomas' last album, "There's Only One Of Me". It was recorded during the sessions for the new album, so in a way, it will be sort of a taste of how that will sound. Kind of. More or less.

I'm also looking forward to hearing the other covers on the album (with no offence to the others, YaYa Herman Düne and Ila Auto are on the top of my list). Be sure to buy it, people. It's for a good cause, one of the best.

And we still miss him.

Morten

According to tradition (heh),  we will be playing Klubb Øya, the Øya festival kick-off, club night thing. Like last year, we are playing in the lovely back yard of Dattera Til Hagen, and it all takes place tuesday August 5. There are tons of other (both good and bad, naturally) bands playing all over Oslo that night, so be sure to plan your schedule well and drop by Dattera around, (say) 19.55. Ish.

More info ici et la (it seems I have been renamed "Eirik").

Morten

The forest fire is out and has been so for a while, so things are looking good for the Feiring gig tomorrow. I found the program for the whole shebang here and, more elaborately, here (PDF).

It seems that if you get up early, you can help yourself to free breakfast, see a tractor and learn how to line dance. We love the Feiring government.

I am sorry to announce that the Horten show is cancelled.

That is, the party (which I found out was in relation to the regatta "Færderseilasen") will go on as planned, but we will not play. The reason is that the powers that be (in this case, the Directorate for Civil Protection and Emergency Planning) have decided to call me in for forest fire duty. So I will be spending the weekend in smoke and ash and a grey uniform.

We are very sorry for this, and we hope we get the chance to play in Horten some other time.

Morten

As usual, we've been too busy to update this site.

Coming Saturday, we're playing a late night show in Horten, put together by Horten Jazzclub. I have at this point no idea on how much the tickets cost or how to get there (except I know where Horten is), but if you're interested, you'll probably work it out.

We will also be debuting some new band members. Firstly, we have a new drummer. Not in the traditional "our old drummer's a fucking junkie, we need a new one"-way, but more in the "the drummer couldn't make it this time, why not try out a new one, and then keep them both"-way. The new guy is called Christian and plays in bands like Nancy Drew, Stella Polaris and Ex-Queen Of The Astronauts (hope I got that right), and tons of other places. Secondly, we will be joined on clarinet and soprano sax by Robin, also from Stella Polaris (where tenor saxophonist Aleksander ("Bosse") is a member).

The Captain & Me have always believed in the saying "the more, the merrier".

And then, next Friday (20^th), we will fire off the three-four-five day midsummer's celebration in steel guitarist and banjist Frode's home town Feiring.

We would like it if you came. It won't be as good without you.

in case you wondered, the recordings are going good. Except for a tuba and a trombone we're looking into, we are completely done with all the instruments, and have moved on to singing. And I am desperately trying to get the last of the lyrics commited to disc. We'll probably throw out some teasers once we get some mixes that we're half pleased with.

Thank you for stopping by.

Morten Horten Porten Epleskrotten

Even and I are well on our way recording the album. The last couple of weeks we have been working on laying overdubs on the (percussion-heavy) tracks from the Sono session. We have recorded accordion, banjo, some mandolin, a little guitar here and there, shakers and tambourines (yes, more percussion), autoharp, Moog (yes) and will soon be getting into more exotic things, like balalaika, ukulele, sitar and pedal steel. And then the horns. And then probably violins and it's bigger siblings. And then, finally, vocals.

Yes, we have a lot of work to do, but at least we're having fun doing it.

in other news, C+C records will be releasing a tribute album to Prince (on his 50. birthday). We have contributed a cover of Strollin'. Mind you, this is not your ordinary tribute album. It's a monster release, 80 tracks spanning 5 CDs. According to the C+C site: "This is more than just a Prince-tributealbum. This is actually EVERYTHING the Norwegian musical scene have to offer 2008. All is made with love to the worlds greatest artist ever, Prince." Also, there's a MySpace page.

And finally, we will be playing the Working Class Hero festival in Drammen may 3. Be there or b².

Morten