Mixtape: NFOP x The 405 presents: Omstart. // Premiere

When people ask us what our favourite sites/blogs are, we always mention the fine folks over at No Fear Of Pop; they have impeccable taste and are lovely people too. So when Tonje Thilesen asked us if we wanted to premiere their new mixtape, we jumped at the chance. It really is a wonderful collection of songs and we're massively happy to be involved with it. Rather than waffling on about the mixtape and how it came about, we'll leave it up miss Thilesen to explain. During the past month, I’ve been working on a little mixtape project that saw its light of day by the nice folks over at The 405 earlier today. As I’m leaving for a three-month long trip in Asia in a couple of hours, this is therefore my last contribution to NFOP in quite a while, and with that in mind, Omstart was born. Omstart (in Norwegian meaning ‘restart’) is most of all a tribute to Norwegian music, consisting of everything from A-ha to Casiokids, remixed, chopped n’ screwed by some of our favourite DIY producers and musicians around the world, opening up with the splendid In Lieu remix of Beach House’s 'Norway', which is the only exception (geographically speaking) to what is entirely a line-up of original tracks by Norwegian bands and artists. Secondly, the mixtape is also a tribute to the Electronic/Ambient genre. For instance, the name Omstart is originally taken from a track with the same name by the Japanese experimental/ambient artist Cornelius, featuring Erlend Øye and Eirik Bøe of Kings Of Convenience on vocals; drifting away into unknown landscapes of Norwegian woods or the great mountains of Okayama. It is also a fine reminder that the borders between our continents are slowly being erased (musically speaking), with the otherwise ‘unnoticeable’ countries such as Norway or Denmark no longer being considered ‘dry deserts’ within the fast-growing music scene. Let’s break the barriers, yall. Giving the artists pretty much free guidelines (other than the obvious theme; the contribution needing to be a remix or a cover of something with relevance to Norway), Persona La Ave decided to put a personal touch on Einar Stray‘s amazingly beautiful 'Chiaroscuro', Australia’s Guerre dived into the more unknown corners of Urørt and cooked up his own remix of P.E.R‘s 'Ensom Nebula', Pierre of Paris based electronic trio sayCeT contributed a dreamy ambient piece of Casiokids’ 'Fot i Hose', Oslo resident Proviant Audio with a remix of Honeytraps, DannielRadall from Mexico with a glitchy electronic remix of A-ha’s 'Blue Sky' - while Yojimbo Billions on the other hand decided to take the challenge a bit further by sampling fragments of 'Ballad Of Revolt', a classical symphony written by the Norwegian composer Harald Sæverud (1897-1992). This has been an incredibly exciting year so far, and all though I’m taking a break from NFOP for a while to focus on traveling, don’t you worry: I’ll be back before you even know it. Also, a huge thanks to everyone who contributed! [DOWNLOAD] Tracklist: 01. P.E.R – Ensom Nebula (Guerre Remix) 03. Casiokids – Fot i Hose (sayCeT Remix) 04. A-ha – Blue Sky (DannielRadall Remix) 05. Einar Stray – Chiaroscuro (Persona La Ave Remix) 06. Jaga Jazzist – One-Armed Bandit (Time Wharp Remix) 07. Honeytraps – Crepuscular Creatures (Proviant Audio Remix) 08. Bendik – Bare Du (Macklin Underdown Remix) 09. Yojimbo Billions – Fragments of Harald Sæverud’s Ballad Of Revolt Photography/artwork: Tonje Thilesen