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Introducing Oddfinds
Oddfinds is an occasional series about the records, songs, or even shops, labels and other pieces of the musical ecology that are literally ‘odd finds’. Pieces of vinyl, CDs or online bits of music hanging around in digital corners. From my point of view, an oddfind is good - very good.
And there are a load of them out there. If a bloke in Denmark can be sent to prison for generating hundreds of AI tracks (and hundreds of thousands of pounds), and a Swedish musician can release thousands of tracks under multiple names, and make millions, then there’s going to be a lot of places where odd music might be hiding – just waiting there, like a diamond in the clarts!1
As a crate-digger by nature, usually these days it’s not on the main streaming platforms where I find the best stuff, although I have to admit that a couple of weeks ago I had a very enjoyable dance-floor-in-my-car experience with Apple Music’s Defected 2024 playlist. However, oddfinds – or many of them – will usually be found in odd places – or places that are new and different, or old and forgotten, which amounts to more or less the same thing.
Oddfinds in music won’t always be new releases. The thing about odd music, is that it flies under the radar. Who is it for? Well, people with odd tastes, like me, sure, but I guess it can lie dormant for years, and then be rediscovered and recovered. And by then it might not seem so odd, and everyone likes it, so it’s all very arbitrary!
Over the years, I have sometimes shared oddfinds with friends, family and sometimes even other music obsessives, and they look at me with that blank look we all know that says, “No. Not sure what is going on here…”.
I like that look. It means I am onto something. At other times, though, the opposite can happens and people really get it, and that’s more than OK!
The first in this oddfinds series is this strange and wonderful record, Askjell Solstrand’s 2022 double LP, everything will be ok.
Note: this video about the album is in Norwegian, and I really like the fact that the subtitles are in Norwegian too. No shits given! It’s good though…
A diversion to the Diggers Factory
I bought my vinyl copy of everything will be ok from the very excellent Diggers Factory2. It is like an online version of a magical record shop you might stumble over in a strange end of a town you’d love to live in. A place where every record looks familiar, even though you’ve never actually seen them before.
Diggers Factory is an odd, hopeful place in an increasingly cynical digital world in which AI bots and anonymous musicians (see above!) can create thousands of tracks that flood the streaming platforms – themselves the equivalents of giant hypermarkets, churning endless digitalised products to attention-deficient punters (often including me).
Diggers Factory makes and sells records. It works with artists to produce their beautiful and strange objects, to create their physical music – in vinyl, CD and tape forms – and then distribute it through their online shop. When I was shopping in their pre-Christmas sale, I could have bought a lot! Reprints of French techno classics; lovingly played film scores, psych rock, drum and bass, pop, hip hop, jazz fusion and so on, from artists familiar, upcoming and unknown.
I had discipline, and ended up with two purchases (and more on my wish list!): everything will be ok and Music For Containment. The latter is a boxed set of 4 LPs containing 33 tracks by 33 French ambient artists, created during the COVID lockdowns. Pretty, oddly niche, I’d say (and a bargain at 50% off!).
The artist who led the Music For Containment initiative – a producer called Molécule – wrote this about the project:
“Our body is confined but our brain is open to it, it can imagine infinity, it can open interior windows onto spaces where it really breathes. This is where sound comes in. Sound enlarges the space. Its organized sound (the music) is a spaceship, a white sailboat which takes you towards an unknown yet familiar horizon.”3
I kind of love those words (and they prove that Google Translate is a poet)! The work is suitably ambitious and impressive; beautiful in many places. I’ve not explored all of it yet, but its strangeness is growing on me! And, maybe I’ll also be exploring Molécule himself for a future post…
everything will be ok - the album
This odd record is an odd looking thing. The front cover cuts out to reveal pictures on the sleeves of the discs inside, which feature a boy wearing an alligator’s head, and a girl with a duckling mask. Variously they hug, touch, dance and jump. The effect is intimate and strangely moving.
The album starts tentatively on a jangly, upright piano with the track, thanks for listening to my album I hope you like it, and begins to build. It feels intimate, Askjell’s initial playful invitation somehow makes an immediate connection with the listener. It’s a relational, hypnotic thing with synthesisers, strange ethereal voices and then back to piano again. And with the final, heartbreaking track of side A, Sofia, you’re left standing high on an emotional ledge…4
Side two comprises three apocalyptically themed tracks (fun promised right there!). The first, atomic bombs atomic bonds I love you, incorporates children’s voices talking about nuclear war to a beautiful backdrop of piano and strings – it’s chilling if you listen closely; strangely ambient if you don’t. The second, dear past, I’ve seen the apocalypse is simply a stone cold masterpiece. Sung by Emilie Nicolas, it’s a beautiful and devastating song, that segues into a more driving, drum-programmed final track, fate came back to say everything will be ok.
Last Christmas, I was playing this record, and we had a full house. Daughters, partners, granddaughters. I wanted something that wouldn’t be too intrusive, but I was aware of its potential strangeness. When dear past, I’ve seen the apocalypse came on, everyone and everything stopped. They got it. My 11 year old granddaughter (a passionate Swifty and budding poet) loved it and wanted to play the song again and again.
So, not such an odd find after all, though it speaks to more than the poetic sensibility of a sensitive pre-teen. The lyrics are unrelenting, they speak to our deeply troubled times. And even though the song - the whole album – is so extraordinary, I, like many, often feel despair at what is being spoken of:
Dear past, you've been through much
Wе were so close, but nеver touched
And now you watched us self-destruct
Oh, God, this is the end of the dream
We can't build time machines and leave
This is the end of the dream
We can't build time machines5
Askjell’s trademark piano returns to begin side C. The music is so deceptively simple. The strings enter, then drums and vocals begin to give the album a more after-hours clubby feel. i’m a nerd (C3) confirms the album’s status as a definitive oddfind, if we weren’t already sure of it – then bumps along into higherdimensionalclubbing on track 4.
On side 4, HEARTPOLICE is almost a straightforward verse and chorus rocker, but then the music breaks and builds back up into the climatic nietzsche was right, which carries an other-worldly vocal by Aurora, before dying off again for the small-but-perfectly-formed, synthesized finale of the last track, everything will be ok.
It’s a brilliant album and utterly listenable from start to finish. I’ll leave you with the wonderful live performance of Sofia:
Next time: Unforgettable - what lingers? When my Dad moved out of his house, my sister and I were sorting through and clearing out his possessions. A few bits would go with him, but there wouldn’t be space for much. There was one record that I wanted to retrieve, however, a single piece of vinyl I remembered from back in my childhood…
Notes
Clarts (not charts) - (Scottish, Northern English) In the sense of mud: soft, sticky matter resulting from mixing of earth and water: https://en.bab.la/synonyms/english/clart
You can find the Diggers Factory at the end of the town, down the winding lane, just behind the park, and opposite the 24 hour coffee shop. The silver gates are unmissable. However, if you can’t find your way there try: https://www.diggersfactory.com
Text and image from taken from https://www.diggersfactory.com/vinyl/241936/molecule-presente-music-for-containment-coffret-4-vinyles. Translation by Google Translate HERE.
Sofia’s story is one of those unexpected backdrop stories to beautiful songs. Askjell writes: “hi, my name is Askjell, an artist, songwriter and music producer from Bergen, Norway - and i’m here to tell you the story of my favourite artist.” He’s writing about Sofia Pastrana Martinez, a young girl who died of a rare cancer, aged 8. He heard about her online from Sofia’s cousin, Noni, and the story is lovely and heartbreaking all at the same time. You can find out more about Sofia and Askjell’s song for her at https://www.sofiaforever.com - and see a moving live performance of Sofia with Aurora and Iris above or here on YouTube.
Lyrics from dear past, I’ve seen the apocalypse: https://genius.com/Askjell-dear-past-ive-seen-the-apocalypse-and-i-wanna-go-home-lyrics