Yndling (Norway) – Fences (single/future album track)

I thought Yndling (Silje Espevi)had visited us before now but it seems not. She’s Oslo based and released ‘Fences’ on 1^st August in advance of her second album ‘Time Time Time (I’m in the Palm of Your Hand)’ which follows on 6^th November.

In fact if I understood it correctly the first part of the album was already released in June and it is the second, contrasting one that will materialise in November.

Mr Google tells me that Yndling translates into English as ‘favourite’ and there’s nothing wrong with self-confidence.

One of the things that prompted me to check her out is that physically she has some of the look of Essex’s doomstress-in-chief Polly Scattergood.

Vocally she’s very similar too, her voice a forced whisper that implies many varieties of angst and she has a similar deadpan spoken rather than sung delivery.

But her music is more dream pop than Polly’s nightmare pop, albeit in a melancholic fashion if you can get your head around that apparent contradiction.

I couldn’t quite get my own head around what ‘Fences’ is about at first; I read it is a simple break up song in which part of her is for moving on but the other part yearns to offer one more chance.

“Let go, stay close/ let go, stay close/ what else could you need?”

But it appears there is more to it. In her own words, “Fences is about self-isolation and kind of the patterns your brain works itself into when you’re struggling with those kinds of emotions, and how your mind works against you sometimes.” So it is her alter ego that is “gone”, rather than a partner.

Living alone in my hermit cave here in Manchester as I do I can vouch for those sentiments.

Musically, it is heavily suggestive of isolation and the monotony of daily life as it plods dreamily but nervously along but turns out to be a slow burner as the outro is much more upbeat and trip-hoppy.

She’s been compared to Mazzy Star and in that outro I can hear where that is coming from.

Yep, I’ll give it foive as Janice Nicholls, a regular on the 1960s British TV music show Thank Your Lucky Stars used to say in a broad Black Country accent long before almost everyone reading this was born.

https://open.spotify.com/track/09pw6KgtHmleKtlE3u9JoH?si=aae58372a2544754

Yndling is supporting the album release with a small number of UK dates, as below:

(I bet Polly will be in the London audience).

6/11/25 | London| Sebright Arms

8/11/25 | Glasgow| Poetry Club

9/11/25 | Manchester | The Castle Hotel

10/11/25 | Bristol | Loco Club.

Find her on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yndling.music