First time for me in ages on the Musosoup promotional platform and I only picked up this single, released on 20th June, on the day before it was due to retire from that vehicle. Fortune favours the brave as they say.
Inuuro is from Stavanger, on the Norwegian North Sea coast (and believe it or not I have actually been there) and consists of childhood friends Oskar Braten, Alexander Ree and Ludvig Anestad. They’ve been around almost as long as the oil business that transformed their town and formed the band as a means for the friends to stay connected and pursue their shared passion for music.
I don’t know what Inuuro means – Mr Google couldn’t offer me a translation, so I’ll spin one of my own – ambient electronica but not as we know it, Captain.
What do I mean by that? Well, there are numerous ‘inspirations’ behind their music, including chill wave, deep house and post-rock, as well as dream pop, but it’s the ambient bit that attracts me.
I tend to think of such music in terms of, let’s say, Eno’s ‘Music for Airports’, the sort of stuff you could nod off to while waiting for your existentially delayed flight, or, better still, while half way across the Atlantic on your red eye flight.
But this is no gentle push towards sleep; it’s more of a violent wakeup call from an irritated stewardess, “because we had strong tails winds and we’re landing in half an hour and we’re late serving breakfast so you’d better get it down your throat pretty damn quick!”
On Viking Airlines. And she’s wearing a helmet with a couple of horns sticking out of it.
Much of the four minutes is underpinned by percussion that sounds like the banging of pots on one of those interminable protest marches that are taking place just about everywhere right now.
But it has its quieter moments too, along with an anthemic ending and if you want to take the line that it’s case of ‘Waves’ by name and by nature you won’t be disappointed. It could represent the power and majesty of the sea and how it can quickly turn from being your friend to your enemy if you don’t treat it with respect.
If that was the intention it does that very well indeed.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inuuro
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inuuro/
Bandcamp: https://inuuro.bandcamp.com/
