About the event

The best way to describe Hanne Hukkelberg's is 'personal,' as the songs are difficult to unequivocally pigeonhole and nimbly escape all attempts at categorization. Hanne started trying to sing and play various instruments at age three. As a teenager, she became the voice of the doom-metal band Funeral, to later try her hand at various genres, including improvisation, metal, jazz, rock and pop. These extensive experiences and their skillful exploitation made Hukkelberg a multifaceted vocalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist. Her consciously chosen path of total artistic freedom allows this original artist to freely jump between genres. Her album debut, Little Things, is a collection of bold and eccentric songs, which is followed by Rykestrasse 68 - a disc surprising for its warmth and lyricalness, while the next album, Blood From a Stone, explores the realms of indie rock, treading trails previously blazed by the likes of Cocteau Twins, Pixies, PJ Harvey and Sonic Youth. It is this very unconventional approach to pop, jazz and art rock that has garnered Hukkelberg worldwide acclaim.

Featherbrain, Hanne's latest album, seems to be a synthesis of her previous achievements, a kind of missing link on her artistic road. Its noisy guitars and heavy rhythms peacefully coexist with lyrical lightness. Ancient-pop is a name that comes to mind when trying to describe this music, something that is at once massive and fragile, coarse and delicate.

The intimate and eccentric music of Hanne Huykkelberg demands of listeners their own intimacy and eccentricity. Once they give in, their reward awaits, where gates open to an unusual, personal sonosphere, filled with countless surprises, not unlike the world of Narnia reached through the magic wardrobe. Appropriately, Hukkelberg composed and sang one of the songs in the film adaptation of Prince Caspian. Her music moves the hidden strings of the senses, perception and mind. Hukkelberg has found the golden mean that makes her songs at once experimental, accessible and ambitious without being undigestible. Just as she easily crosses genres, she's also able to use seldom-used instruments and completely non-musical sounds to weave her dynamic compositions. Her albums and live performances are filled with church organs, harpsichords, cellos, thumb pianos, samplers, body sounds, electronica and even a run-of-the-mill sewing machine. The compositions have it all: dogs barking, trains leaving, refrigerator doors slamming, and rocks crashing. Each song is an independent and autonomous entity with a seemingly sentient existence. Hanne boasts an unusual sonic imagination that requires no cheap tricks or effective props. Her songs contain none of the technological fluency of other Norwegian musicians. Instead, listeners experience the primal authenticity of emotions, intimacy and enigma - and, of course, her voice. Enjoy the ride.

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