Ask Carol (Norway) – Wind in my hair (sample track from the album AC II – Desert Sky

Ask Carol (Karoline Strømshoved and Ask Thorsønn Borgen) are on a musical diet. Their debut album, ‘AC I: Control You’, which we wrote about over three years ago, was a mammoth 18-track one, but the just released ‘AC II: Desert Sky’ is a slimmed down 12 tracks.

Actually some of the tracks on the first album were very brief instrumentals, while there were a couple of remixes and a live version as well and they’ve followed a similar format this time with two very brief ‘Interludes’ and a couple of short instrumentals.

Regrettably our review is similarly refined; it was the full album last time out but circumstances dictate only a quick overview and a sample track tonight.

‘AC II: Desert Sky’ is appropriately named – they spent quite a lot of time during the last couple of years chasing around America and experiencing much of that endless big sky you can only find over there. And building up a considerable following in the US as well as in Norway and Europe.

Right now they’ve just passed through London for what I think might have been their first UK gig?, in between shows last month at Longyearbyen, Svalbard and Jan Mayen, Norway’s northernmost territories, halfway to the Arctic Circle, and in Vardø on 14^th November, the easternmost town in Norway (and in all the Nordic countries), located east of Saint Petersburg, Kyiv, and Istanbul.

They certainly know how to set records at all points of the compass.

And how to make them.

I wouldn’t describe those short tracks as fillers. They all have something to say, and especially the concluding one, the seemingly ‘Spirit in the Sky’ influenced ‘Moo Moo’, which possibly references their rural retreat of Auma, 300km north of Oslo, and their bovine audience when they are rehearsing or just jamming and which they call Cowchella.

Of the main body of songs I did consider making the sample the opening one, the endless journey without a destination that is ‘Desert’ and its virtual reprise later, ‘Desert Sky’,both representative of how much they love these huge landscapes and playing the towns that are dotted around them, the length of the US.

Also ‘Cold July’, a climate-themed lament for future generations, and the intensely political, dystopian ‘Writing on the wall’ that is as disillusioning as it sounds, with the need to take sides, pick a fight, make a stance, cross a line and to take on the elite, the mad kings (I think we know who that is) and oligarchs.

What, all of them? Better to just head out into that desert and live off the land.

‘Ohio’ is a cover of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s classic standard anti-war anthem about the Kent State University shootings in May 1970, when the Ohio National Guard shot, wounded and killed students during a protest against the Vietnam War. A slightly softer, more ethereal version and with a less harsh guitar tone than the original, it more than does it justice.

Ultimately, I opted for the second track, ‘Wind in my hair’, one that epitomises the theme of the album, to move on, leave behind the baggage, and embrace the unknown.

Several of the songs on the album would be perfect for the next road movie that is yet to be made, and this is the prime example.

“When my hair is flowing free/I’m where I’m supposed to be”.

A slow burner that escalates into an anthem that would reverberate from one end of the Grand Canyon to the other, it says everything about what Ask Carol has developed into over the last few years.

It was evident right from the start that Ask Carol is a very talented duo but they have come on even more quickly than I anticipated to become the go-to social observer on the Norwegian music scene.

Where Das Body for example hangs out its social dirty washing on an Oslo apartment line, Ask Carol does it on the Gulf Stream, ensuring its take and views on the political scene on both sides of the Atlantic are readily accessible.

As such they fill a niche, one that is there to be built on if they wish to in the future although I’m sure they would be able to construct an equally attractive album if they restricted themselves to writing about Cowchella.

I hope they can make it back to the UK soon, and not just London.

(Continues after the Spotify link).

Album score: 8/10

Find them on:

Website: https://www.askcarolmusic.com/