New Nordic: Volume 7
This week featuring new music from TULLE, Dagny, Astrid S, Aurora, Girl In Red, Sabrina Carpenter, Moyka and L.U:N.A
Music to die for? Songs from the heart? New tours and music releases? Just some of the topics for this week’s spotlight on Norwegian talent.
☁️ What’s this? New music from Astrid S (Astrid Smeplass) you say? She has just teased what she says is one of her favourite songs ‘Oh Emma’. It drops on Friday and has already sparked a wave of excited comments from fans.
✟ Death Pop is a new phrase to me, I’m not going to lie. It is described as being a morbid curiosity, exploring themes of loss, grief, suffering and rebirth, asking big questions; what happens after death, and what do we become after grief?
Yet having listened to a preview stream of ‘Can’t Be Saved’, the first single from Oslo-based artist and songwriter TULLE’s debut EP, there is no doubt that Death Pop is a thing. It is disarming in its pop charm, but the lyrics are relentless in the questions that they provoke.
She laid a marker back in 2022 with her first single ‘Dead Dead Dead’. Yup, death pop. 2023 saw a series of singles including ‘Godforsaken City’, ‘I Hope Your Demons Look Like Me’ and ‘Skeletons’.
Written by TULLE and Jens Wik, who also produced, and mixed and mastered by Truls Andersen, the new single is out on April 12.
"It's a melancholy song about questioning yourself and your faith, when everything around you is telling you that you're not all the things you thought you were," says TULLE, adding: "I'm exploring grief and acceptance, while being in a state of defeat.”
🎤 Dagny (Dagny Norvoll Sandvik) who kicks off her tour tonight fresh from sharing this promo for what looks to be new music. Worth noting the date 12.04.2024 also happens to be the night she performs at The Academy in Dublin.
💙 Aurora has announced the official date for releasing her album ‘What Happened to the Heart’ as June 7. With two singles out already in Your Blood and Some Type of Skin, a European tour will follow in September and October. In the meantime she has followed Sigrid in becoming host for the excellent BBC Radio podcast Tearjerker which is streaming all episodes now.
🔴 You Need Me Now, the latest single from Girl In Red featuring Sabrina Carpenter is out now. Tickets are still also on sale for a second gig at the Barrowlands in Glasgow this coming August.
🎬 L.U:N.A (Mia Roussel) who I featured last week has now released a video for her latest single ‘Slepp meg inn’ (Let Me In) from her new EP Only Me Again.
👑 After hit Netflix show Young Royals sparked a wave of intense new interest in the brilliant Moyka thanks to several of her songs being used in the official soundtrack, she recorded this video by way of introduction to her world of music including latest album Movies, Cars & Heartbreak. No show spoilers though please, just three episodes to get through before the finale.
🎧 If you think anyone should make the next 50 tracks to be added to our official playlist, tag us on Instagram.
