In
Conversation with
Frost
July 2008
A
little background:
Listing a influence as wide
ranging as New Order,
The Cocteau Twins, Aphex
Twin and then
Donna Summer, Yazoo and
Elvis Presley to name
but a few people, it was always
odds on Frost duo
Aggie Peterson and Per.
Martinsen were always
going to be interviewed by Setting
Sun.
The bio is covered in the
interview in more
depth, but both of them
hail from Tromsø in the far
north of Norway.
Between them they have
previously operated
under, or lent their
talents to a variety of names
in the Norwegian electronic
music scene, namely bands
like Moonflowers, Solefald
and Those Norwegians
(Aggie), and Mental Overdrive, Illumination/Chilluminati
(Per), but since they
produced the album Melodica
together in 2001 they've
been collaborating as Frost.
I first discovered them by
chance as I always do on the
internet and really enjoyed
their stuff, to such a degree
I e mailed them and the
enclosed interview came
through in due course.
More information about the
duo can be found here
http://www.myspace.com/frostnorway
(Make sure you check out
their Prince cover version on
here too as it is great
which of course I want to
state does not take
anything away from their also
great original tracks)
Cheers to both of them for
their interview here!
It was well worth the
while!
Cheers
Andy N
Setting Sun:
Hi there - how are things and what is happening
At the moment?
Frost:
Things are good with lots of new things going on.
We just moved
back to our hometown Tromsø,
far up North in
the Arctic. We think it will be very
inspiring to
work out new material here in these
beautiful,
cold surroundings!
Setting Sun:
Next, can you tell us a little bit about the
history 'Frost' what started you off etc?
Frost:
Frost was initially formed in 1997 in Tromsø,
Northern
Norway, with singer/writer
Miss Aggie
Peterson and Norwegian Dub Disco
entrepreneur DJ Rune Lindbæk at the
core of the project.
Together, and with the
extended
assistance of Mr. Torbjørn Brundtland
(now Röyksopp)
in addition to a few other
hired hands,
they produced the album
"Bedsit
Theories" in 1998. The album did
very
well in Norway, and the single "Clouds
across
the moon – a cover version of the
Rah
Band classic, received heavy rotation on
MTV
in the summer of '98.
In 1999 Aggie and Rune released
the single
"Endless
Love", with remixes by Röyksopp and
duo
Illumination/Chilluminati – of which
electrohead and long time Norwegian provider of
electric funk,
Per Martinsen (also of Mental Overdrive),
was one half.
This saw the beginning of a collaboration
between Aggie
and Per, and in 2001 they released the
album "Melodica" together. Since then the pair
have
collaborated as Frost.
"Melodica" consisted of glitchy electropop and
downtempo airy
songs, and received great reviews
worldwide. The
song "Amygdala" was released on
a double vinyl
12" single with a variation of remixes,
and the 7" vinyl single "Pharmacy"/"Half-whole"
is still a
sought- after gem.
Now they have just produced their second album
together. The
material this time leans more towards
upbeat
"space-pop" with catchy songs
wrapped in hard-hitting yet dubby production.
According to the duo, some of the mission for
the new album
is to "search for the lost pop of that
golden era
when joy and creativity had as big a place
in pop music
as pure commerciality and copyism has
had in the last decades".
Setting Sun:
Music wise what are your influences and
What music are you listening to at the
moment?
Frost:
We love old synth pop, like yazoo, omd, but
also great
italo and for the moment things like mgmt,
burial,
santogold and lots of other stuff... we both dj,
so we listen
to a lot of different music from different
time and
places...
Setting Sun:
Next, I notice from your excellent myspace.com
you play concerts on a regular ish basis? How
Do they compare to your studio recordings –
is their one you prefer over the other?
Frost:
We have to rethink each songs to creat a good live
version. We
have tried many differetn set-ups.
The one we
thinks works best, especially in terms of
energy,
equipment and performace is when Per
plays live MIDI drums, with carefully selected
sounds for the
beats (BIG sounds!), Ableton Live
to trigger the
sequense of the song and Aggie
doing vocals,
keyboard, small gadgets and
kitchen
appliances. It fun and more energy than
on the
recordings. We have learned a lot
about our own music by playing live, and we have
worked a lot
to get better live. It's always a challange for
elctronica
artists to be able to be good live, I think.
It's quite
different from a band with each distinct
instrument.
Setting Sun:
I have being really enjoying all of your
Songs on your myspace.com - although I think
my favourite is 'My plastic heart' – can you tell us
a bit more about it
Frost:
Thanks! We like it too - we had so much fun
writing it,
recording it and playing it live. It was so fun
we even made
that video at home with a mini
camera from
Hong Kong, some glitter, make-up
and a Maglite torch....
Setting Sun:
I was also impressed to see you have recorded
a cover of Prince's 'Sex Shooter' - what is the
Inspiration behind that and how does your approach
change to doing cover versions instead of your
own originals?
Frost:
We were invited to do "Sex Shooter" for a trbute
album to
clebrate Prince and his 50th birthday. 50
artists doing
their own interpretation of Prince's songs.
The song is
pretty cheesy, so we decided to do a more
heartwrenched
and mellow version. We recorded in
in Bugge Wesseltoft's studio during Easter - it was
all grey,
rainy and cold in Oslo these days - so we just
got into that
vibe, making the lrics seem almost ironic.
It was nice
for us to work togehter on new material again,
strip down the
production and play on what we had
within reach. I just sung the song through on an
M-Audio
Microtrack portable recorder, capturing the
feeling of the
song right there and then. Per found these
great weird
sounds and we worked from there.
However, the Prince got a little fuzzy about all this
attention,
so he/his publishers desiced to sue the little
record company
C+C Records for this gesture.
Read more here:
http://www.thedailyswarm.com/swarm/prince-strikes-again-sues-stop-
norweigian-tribute-project/
Well, so we had to cancel our release of the track - it's
only
available on whats left of the limited edition of
the 5CD album
called "Shockadelica"
However - we decided to give our version as a free
download on
our website:
and it's available for everyone who wants to listen to
it on MySpace:
Setting Sun:
What¹s next for you? Do you have any
Recordings planned etc?
Frost:
Yup - to write and record new songs here in Tromsø.
Also a
remix album coming up this year. Per has his
Mental
Overdrive scheduled for release this fall and
we're both
making music on our own, like remixes
and filmmusic.
www.myspace.com/mentaloverdrive
Setting Sun:
Where are you from? What's the music scene like
were you live? Have you being to any good
concerts recently?
Frost:
Tromsø used to be the cradle of Norwegian electronic
music.
Röyksopp, Bel Canto, Biosphere, Mental Overdrive,
Bjørn Torske -
we're all from Tromsø. THen everybody
moved - now we're trying to be back, getting
back to that good old vibe...
Setting Sun:
What would you like to be doing when you
are 60?
Frost:
Hm - I'd like to have really long hair, touring to weird
festivals
in strange places of the world... (Aggie)
Having lived through the Apocalypse (Per)
Setting Sun:
Lastly, what will you be doing when you are 60?
Frost:
I usually do
what I've planned, cause I'm really
stubborn - so
I guess I'll be doing just that (Aggie)
Be happy that I survived the Apocalypse (Per)