Fruitful

Text Siw Maiken Jæger and Maren Serine Andersen

The Norwegian hip hop duo Fredfades & Ivan Ave met each other in the year of 2008. Ivan Ave, who at that time lived in Stavanger, a harbour town on the Southwestern coast of Norway, was travelling to the capital Oslo on the East side of the nordic country. Back then he went by one of his former artist names, Ivy League, and to our amusement the guys just can’t stop laughing as they try telling mon Dieu their memories of how Fredfades randomly recognized the young rapper in the street. That he actually stopped him, introduced himself as a music producer and declared right away how much he admired Ivy League’s lyrical skills at the duo’s first encounter, is an incident that the guys were quite happy for as they sat side by side having a chat with us many years after, and few days before releasing their new Fruitful LP.

At that moment in the street they instantly connected, and Fredfades quickly suggested that the two of them should make music together. The next day Ivy League AKA Ivan Ave was picked up by Fredfades in his father’s Mercedes Benz, and the new friends cruised out to his childhood home in the eastern suburbs. In Fredfades’ boy room, they went through something about a number of 180 beats made in the charming home studio. After the last beat had stopped, the young producer stared at the young rapper and broke the sudden silence by claiming honest feedback. «True producer style» Ivan Ave nods with a serious smile and a nostalgic look on his face. The two of them have made music together ever since. Seems like true hiphop bromance to mon Dieu.

The duo is in a crew called Mutual Intentions that is one of the many creative collectives making a part of today’s huge trend where talents from different creative fields work together in groups. Mutual Intentions recently hosted a party for Boiler Room that made the popular music platform’s debut here in Norway. The concept of Boiler Room is basically video streaming of live performances on their own website, and the guys explain how they really felt the pressure thinking of live exposure for a worldwide audience; “When I was going to take down the beat set due to schedule, I just held the machine tight and started to kick it loose – I had to get it off stage before the concert was about to start” Fredfades explains enthusiastically. Even though they experienced moments with stress, they are certain that the hard work paid off as they are happy with how the video streaming of their performances turned out.

Seeing that Boiler Room is a platform mostly for electronic music, Mutual Intentions consider their contribution as a fresh breath. As their productons stretch towards the softer, warmer and more hearty traditional music genres of soul, jazz and funk, mon Dieu can’t ignore the irony considering that the crew now slightly confuses the international reputation of Norway, that many associate with macho metal music and the brutality of our viking ancestors. The contrastingly laid-back, pleasant ans sensuous genres that characterize the sound of Mutual Intentions have built enormous fan bases across both age and culture over many, many years. As mon Dieu sees it, this is an aspect that possibly makes their music sound kind of familiar and appealing even for untrained ears. Regarding that benefit, hopefully some new fans outside the duo’s regular genres have discovered them during their Boiler Room session.

Yesterday was the release of Fredfades & Ivan Ave’s second LP, Fruitful via record label Jakarta Records, and today mon Dieu sais toi toi only hours before the release concert that they are doing this evening. At this performance the guys will be presenting their album track by track. That they are working with the German label is actually the very reason why mon Dieu Sound’s attention was drawn in the first place. See, Jakarta Records is more than familiar to us as the label previously has released music by artists that have created some of our Le List-favourites. mon Dieu Sound really admire playful and daring music pioneers such as Ta-ku, Kaytranada and IAMNOBODI that some years ago took modern hiphop to a new level. Canadian Kaytranada’s amazing remix of Janet Jackson’s «If» was a unique milestone reaching sky high from the blossoming wave of good music flowing from Toronto these days.

As we now reflect back on international admirable artists it should also be mentioned that the album «Fruitful» includes collaborations with international artists such as Fresh Daily (New York, USA), Jalal Salaam (New York, USA) and Juju Rogers (Germany). The duo has also collaborated with musicians like Kristoffer Eikrem (Norway) and Arthur Kay Piene (Norway). This indicates that the album certainly offers a wide blend of artistic expressions.

mon Dieu congratulates Fredfades and Ivan Ave on the album release and wish them all the best for the future.

le list 08/15

le list Maren Serine Andersen

LET ME IN to your ears again. Because I don’t want ANYONE BUT YOU. If you do I’ll show you my SNAKE HIPS. And you will adore my CRYSTAL CASTLES for sure. The WEEKND will be so much fun, but only if you come. If you do, you’ve got to SHOW ME LOVE. It would also be nice if you told your dog that the BITCH BETTER HAVE MY MONEY. And please remember to stop being such a memoryless GOLDFISH. You have been a DAFT PUNK for too long already. Why not become a VOYAGER AMOREUX? If it might seem a bit scary you can COME DOWN TO US in stead. We can celebrate with a juicy AVOCADO. As we do.

rihannaburialkölschdimitrifrompariscrystalcastlestheweeknd

Happening: Club Bademantel

Text Maren Serine Andersen

The idea of arranging a club concept randomly occurred during one of many late nights in the founder’s old appartment located in downtown Oslo. He must really have loved opening his doors to the clubbers of Norway’s capital as he for a long while tirelessly hosted afterparties up to as many as five times a week. These underground get-togethers in the popular street Keysers gate, surrounded by chill neighbors such as the renowned and liberal art school Prosjektskolen, ranged from the intimate kind to gigantic House and Techno blasting blowouts with hundreds of guests.

Alike mon Dieu Sound (formerly the Playdate Project, video beneath article), the founder of Club Bademantel has a quite obvious fondness of bathrobes. To be a bit more precise, «bademantel» is the German translation of yet another founder; Hugh Hefner’s favorite clothing item. We all clearly share an agreement on that pajama dressing definitely can be a formidable force in fashion. The background story of the club concept’s uniform presented to mon Dieu is that a few of his countless afterparty guests at one point felt so much at home that they actually put on some bathrobes he had lying around in his place. After this he started to offer bathrobes to his guests on a regular basis. As an afterparty host with a fine reputation should, he had now become aware of how comfort comes first in the most successful and effortless afterparties. As this was warmly welcomed by the crowd it became a natural decision to go for PJs as the signature style of Club Bademantel. The way mon Dieu sees it, this was a wise choice in order to at least be remembered visually considering the enormous overflow of DJs and club concepts in the current club culture of Oslo.

Last Friday Club Bademantel had their grand debut on the nightclub scene of Oslo with a line-up of seven DJs (line-up beneath article). Our Techno guy, Marius Kristiansen (Appears on picture above) suggested that mon Dieu should check out the club concept and invited us to join the guest list for the night. The line-up sounded quite promising out from what we heard through the online DJ sets and we were also quite fascinated by the bathrobe detail as we had done something pretty similar in our own DJ and designer promoting project Playdate a while ago. On top of that we got even more surprised as we recognized one of the DJ names in the line-up that actually had been a part of Playdate (DJ Jose Espeland appearing in video beneath aricle). We almost got a bit sentimental by the sight of the former Playdate DJ once again slipped into his PJs behind the decks. And from what we heard he played even better than before.

When we arrived at The Villa, a popular venue for electronic music lovers in Oslo, we unfortunately met some of the most unfriendly and rude bouncers that we have ever experienced in Oslo, so we were not far from ending the evening before it had even started up in the entrance. Luckily the generous amount of bathrobe dressed DJs providing us with beats in this concept made it possible for a british DJ to come upstairs and rescue us together with our Techno guy. «You are the guys from Vogue, right?» he greeted us to our amusement. The guy holding the list was probably far from amused as he understood that he had made a mistake and that there now were no other choice but to let us in.

So in the end everything turned out well. The music impressed us enormously and mon Dieu will definately follow the advice of Techno supporter Marius every time he wants our company in front of the DJ booth.

Bademantel line-up, The Villa 16th october 2015:

Main room: Duncan Macdonald / Paul White / Renee Tvedt / Tore Magnus Wilhelmsen
Sweatshop : Ryan Cooke / Philip Hinz b2b Jose Espeland

Playdate #6, May 2014.

Happening: Never too old to techno

Text Maren Serine with Luca Sør

Just have a look a bit above Marius Kristiansen’s neck and there it is: the essential element of «Escape Reality». This techno night provided plenty of decent DJ drops, but we absolutely agree on one thing: we were all quite impressed with one nice surprise – a DJ in the stairway!

Dancing in stairs is challenging but fun. «Escape Reality» was not the first celebration of the initiator’s favorite music genre, nor the last. Next time we will leave our drinks at the table and put on comfy sneakers. A little taste of the local line-up from this techno get-together can be found below:

If you want to join us at the upcoming event, message us on Soundcloud.

mon Dieu 006 – LovePlex – Printemps Amour / A French Panorama

Text Maren Serine Andersen with Siw Maiken Jæger, Erik André Nes and Helga Andersen Wikene

This time around Sound has the pleasure of introducing a dark dog from Casablanca. This story started with the track «Berlin Calling» – an impressive piece of music which caused the effect of love at first sound by the discovery of the project «Deep House Paris» on Sound Cloud. The Parisian artist and former Stock Exchange Engineer by the name «LovePlex» was the initiator of this project. We have indulged in the generosity of lovely sounds from our fellow music lover ever since.

This sunny day a happy dark dog celebrated summer with a fresh splash into the flowing water of a Norwegian river. Summer came late to the north. Naturally the mixture from LovePlex has also awaited the right moment to enter the warmest light there is. As we now are at the peak of the sweet summer days, it is time to remember the first golden rays of light following a white winter light with shades of blue.

The name «LovePlex» carries an interesting meaning. Alike the mixture, also the name itself, «LovePlex»,  glances back towards earlier days. We must reverse time to when the Latin language was dominating the human tongue. More precisely: «LovePlex» is a linguistic combining form meaning that parts of a unity are specified by the initial element – a phenomenon that originally occurred in loanwords from Latin. Maybe the Latin words «duplex» and «quadruplex» sound familiar? If not, please have no worries. Latin is in fact declared a so called «language of the past».

Back to our time again; LovePlex has decided to unite separated parts of love through eclectic styles of music and universes – always keeping a deep and sensitive touch. LovePlex is from this season on dedicating all his time to create music and gather likeminded lovers. LovePlex’s aim is to to follow his ambition of uniting the lost elements of love and pass it on through music.

Now a treat for the curious ones:

(An insight to the latest conversation between LovePlex and Sound)

L I finished the track selection, and the order of the tracks are chosen in respect to peace & harmony. I made a very french and elegant mix with many vocal tracks.

S Sounds promising as we highly admire elegance as well as quality, character, bravery and freedom! We love elegance, LovePlex.

L Good. I used to do instrumental music but I wanted to do something different for a change. I therefore have chosen tracks for girls and boys with french vocal parts, a bit new wave, a bit dreamy and a bit chic.

S Dreamy and chic sounds especially wonderful, LovePlex.

L Well, there you are: A track you can listen to in a private artistic venue while sipping a glass of champagne.

S Merci beaucoup et santé a toi. We find the mixture super laid back and with a lovely harmony between melody and rhythm. The sensation feels very sensual and flirtatious but still quite effortless. And your elegance is unmistakably present. So nice, LovePlex!

L I am relieved- the mon Dieu mix is so different from what I have done before.

S «Printemps Amour- A French Panorama» definitely has a lot of your personality and character, LovePlex. Sounds like poetry and philosophy.

L Yes that is an association I am happy with. I wanted to give an authentic French flavor for this summer. A trained ear might recognize the lot of work behind the mix, as I edited most tracks and put a lot of personal assemblage (dialogues, vocals, mashups, etc.) into the mon Dieu mix.

S Could you please dive a little deeper?

L Well, it was set on a 4-tracks basis with many elements at a time, so I was well aware that I took on me a huge challenge when I chose this direction. It took so much more time and energy than when I make my regular deep house electronic mixes. See, tempos are changing all the time. For the mon Dieu mix I had to match them by hand (no «auto sync» – just true DJ’ing here). So I can tell you that it was a quite technically demanding piece of sound to deliver.

S Wow, well done! You must have felt very relieved when you finished it.

L Yes indeed. I was bursting with joy! And I really did try to select some epic goodies for you connoisseurs. Tracks are tapped out from my early musical memories. Then I matched the memories with some yet nearly unheard tracks from 2015. Then I wanted to top it off with a nice frosting of forgotten electro pop hits from the late 90’s. The sprinkle on top of the frosting is actually some of my favourite melodies from the huge variation of French classic melodies.

S C’est vraiment gentil de ta part, LovePlex.

L Really? I am so very, very happy that u like it. Really, I did it with all my heart.

LovePlex together with mon Dieu hereby invite you to let your ears taste the sound mixture «Printemps Amour-A French Panorama»– a soundscape reflecting the marvelous spring in Paris, the city of love.

le list 07/15

Branches in the backyard were naked and brown. Now suddenly blossoming pink. Just like Dorian Gray’s nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of scarlet flame. This is spring in Oslo, so intense, unpredictable and lovely. Printemps amour a french panorama- Spring in Paris sounds quite nice as well. Berlin calls to offer a taste of the next mon Dieu mixture. It is groovy, funky, dreamy, nostalgic, and very french.

mon Dieu 005 – Lysgaard

Text Maren Serine Andersen

Introducing Lysgaard, an emerging cultural hybrid as extrovert DJ, introvert producer and graphic designer. The connoisseur of local club culture and electronic music is head of design in Nabovarsel, a Norwegian collective of artists, musicians and “nerds”.

His mon Dieu mix is a playful reflection of his taste in music. The eclectic selection of tracks is also based upon response from his latest dance floor crowds. That Lysgaard takes pleasure in uniting genres like throwback-house and acid disco is an obvious characteristic. The same goes for delicate details like cute soft spots that only genuine music geeks have. Like Sade’s sensual voice that is included because it appeals to him with a sexiness reminding him of a hot marshmallow.

This mon Dieu mix is a musical crossbreed slumbering off with a dreamy flow. Then the tempo gradually accelerates into a voyage exploring some of the wildest corners of electronic music. Lysgaard has improvised the session on four lines into the mixer with the result of an effortless, quirky and refreshing audible experience. With a habit of cutting and pasting his musical assortment together in the moment, it can be hard to identify his tracks. As a dedicated booster of norwegian sound he nevertheless wants to highlight that tracks by local heroes like André Bratten and Skatebård are included in the mix. Check out more music by Lysgaard here.

le list 06/15

A jump across Iberica from spring to summer and a very warm Lisboa welcome. Port wine, Panaché, Pastel de nata. Lovely lisbonites adore their pulchritudinous place – a contagious crush when adventuring in the charming city of sweet candy colors. Vespa in the vesper cruising slender streets frosted with shiny glazed tiles. A long snooze away from praia. Beat bounce in Lux and Laboratório stole beach time for now. Listen to Kraviz and realize how.

mon Dieu 004 – Saeed Aman

Presenting Saeed Aman, a persian DJ, producer and radio host. With preference for an audio mood of melancholy and groove, the Florence based artist has mixed this wonderful blend of sound representing the whole spectrum of his taste in music. Our ears are taken from highly emotional percussion-less tracks to stuff suitable for his sets at the Florence club scene. The sound selection spans from soulful Iranian music to steamy south American vibes. Melancholy and groove are the two main quality components Saeed Aman always seek in music. It’s all about these two things and not really about the genre for him during the composing of his musical narratives. With at least one of his two essential parts pleasantly present in the soundscape, he would be totally satisfied. The rest is then all about creating a solid mix that has an interesting point and presents a story. The detail of telling a story reflects the cinematic influence on him.

To hear more from Saeed Aman, check out his project Middle East NOW.

Tracklist:
1. Ghazal Shakeri – Man O To
2. Saeed Aman – Sketch for an Interlude
3. Inezita Barroso – Capoeira Do Saloma (Carrot Green Bass Remix)
4. Ekova – Sabura (Saeed Aman Edit)
5. Moondog – Behold
6. Lulacruza – Cucarachero de Niceforo (Only Intro)
7. Jacek Sienkiewicz – Beacon (Soulphiction Remix)
8. OY – Cloudy Gallery (Kadebostan ‘Presences’ Remix)
9. Acid Pauli – Gefällt mir nicht
10. Makan Ashgvari – Bi Saropa

le list 05/15

Sounds like spring already came in march. Well, at least to sunny Barcelona. Time for Macba skateboarding, slurping cold Desperados and Brunch Electronic with a crowd so hip that voguing to beats while constantly looking for a VIP seems like everyday procedure. Enjoy this playful mix of dreamy mood, feisty groove and lazy melodies. Oh, and pay extra attention to the Saeed Aman track oozing of beautiful middle eastern mystery – a new mon Dieu mix is coming closer.