Announces Debut Album "Ames Room" out March 11th on Fat Cat Records!
"Ames Room sounds like we're hearing it under a magnifying glass. Norwegian multi-instrumentalist Silje Nes amplifies sounds that are typically miniature, so the song pops and clicks like hooves on cobblestone, as if the title space is located either in a dollhouse or perhaps Nes' imagination." - Pitchforkmedia.com
"Norway's Silje Nes has crafted a wondrous and whimsical album in the form of Ames Room. Songs that are equal parts playful, simple and heartfelt all swirl around in a mixture homespun keys and spare bedroom beats. Her voice whispers from under the covers with lyrics written in the frost that forms on the windows. Nes works in lightly wound loops that burst with an intimate charm that is in no way uncommon to her home region. Claptrap ambience and an acute yet charmingly simple sense of merging the natural with the electronic make Nes' compositions instantly endearing and yet subtly catchy." - Raven Sings The Blues
Welcome to the sweet and mischievous sound-world of Silje Nes!
FatCat first became aware of Norwegian singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist through a unique and utterly charming 2005 demo. Immediately intrigued by the quirkily sprawling mixture of instruments, electronics and sweet vocals, the label remained in touch with Silje, as she slowly and gradually pieced together what would become her debut album, Ames Room. Boldly inventive and broad-visioned, Ames Room announces the emergence of a hugely talented and distinctive young artist. Excepting the first track, which was written and recorded with Kristian Stockhaus from Ungdomskulen, the album is solely Silje’s work, and is imbued throughout with her distinct joy in the act of creation.
The home-recorded album gathers together material created between fall 2004 and summer 2007. For Silje, recording is just as important as songwriting, and all the tracks were recorded spontaneously, as they were written, leaving in rough edges and imperfections. While her early recordings were largely instrumental (often using her voice as an instrument, without lyrics) and more heavily electronic, over the past year lyrics and vocals have come to the fore along with guitar and drums. Silje’s voice is enchanting: breathy and beautifully measured, calmly sitting at the center of the musical webs she spins like a benevolent animating spirit.
While Silje creates a sound-world entirely her own, Ames Room shares an autodidactic adventurousness with peers like Tujiko Noriko, Islaja, Lau Nau, or Foehn, as well as the homespun, sprawling beauty of The Pastels, Pram, or Crescent. Broad-ranging and full of character, Ames Room moves from languid dream-pop to stomping, upbeat tracks, to more introspective. abstract numbers. Sparkling melodies exude a music-box sweetness, while spindly electronics - barbed, bubbling, and tinkling - weave around an eclectic instrumentation that includes cello, drums, guitar, bass, keyboards, recorder, glockenspiel, xylophone, melodica, and trumpet, as well as percussion played on all manner of found objects.
Silje Nes grew up in the tiny town of Leikanger, in Sognefjord, the largest fjord in Norway, before moving to the rainy, larger town of Bergen in 2000. She began making her own music in 2001, recording on 4-track demo software through a tiny inbuilt microphone on a laptop. Though she’d previously studied classical piano, when she started recording she decided to do so with guitars and instruments on which she had no playing experience. Guided by finding sounds she loved and the excitement of discovering new instruments without learned conventions, she made use of whatever equipment she could get hold of - an old synth, a cello, a drum kit, a laptop, loop pedals, etc. – to create the unique instrumentation and songwriting style evident on Ames Room.
"Ames Room" Tracklisting
1. Over All
2. Drown
3. Shapes, Electric
4. Ames Room
5. Giant Disguise
6. Dizzy Street
7. Long Shadows Left Around
8. Bright Night Morning
9. Recurring Dream
10. Searching, White
11. Magnetic Moments Of Spinning Objects
12. Melt
13. Escape
14. No Bird Can
Silje Nes Live!
Jan 18 2008 Ausland Berlin
Jan 26 2008 la flèche d’or with frightened rabbit Paris
Jan 27 2008 Shh festival, Luminaire London
Jan 31 2008 The Green Note Cafe London
Feb 1 2008 The Sanctuary Cafe Brighton
Feb 2 2008 The Cube Cinema Bristol
Feb 6 2008 Bellville Oslo
Feb 7 2008 Trash Pop, charlies bar Kristiansand
Feb 8 2008 tou scene with anne marie almedal Stavanger
Feb 15 2008 Hulen Bergen
Feb 23 2008 Kunstencentrum Belgie with Pluramon, To Rococo Rot, David Daniell Hasselt
US Tourdates this March (including SXSW appearances) coming soon!
For more information, visit:
www.myspace.com/siljenes
www.fat-cat.co.uk
