In Vinyl Lives we spotlight and profile record stores around the country who offer music lovers an experience that goes beyond an iTunes purchase or a Spotify playlist. Vinyl has found a new resurgence in recent years and the good folks behind independent record stores are on the front line, directly responsible for curating a unique collection of music. Here at Glide Magazine we feel that record stores are a valuable part of the community and to music as a whole, and are therefore worth celebrating.
In this special edition of Vinyl Lives, we are venturing across the Atlantic to the Scandinavian country of Norway and its capital Oslo. The city is home to the trio Orions Belte, a trio that plays mostly instrumentals with occasional vocals sprinkled in. Though the band is not as well known here in the States, their unique approach to weaving jazz, funk, indie rock, and dream pop into a sound that is entirely their own feels well-suited to the kind of audiences that go wild for bands like Animal Collective and Khruangbin. Their 2021 album Villa Amorini was one of the year’s best in this writer’s opinion, exuding tight musical chemistry, effortless cool, and sun-soaked vibes that felt like it was coming from somewhere far away from Norway. Hot off last year’s album, Orions Belte just dropped their most ambitious project to date on November 18th. The sprawling triple LP features a collection of songs from each individual band member, offering a testament to the massive amount of creativity and vision within the trio. It also finds them each experimenting with new sounds and more vocals as they dip into influences of hip-hop, rock and roll, prog, power pop, and spaced out jazz.
With so many musical styles coming through in their sound, it should come as little surprise that the members of Orions Belte spend lots of time in record stores. To break up our usual Vinyl Lives format and offer something a little different, Orions Belte guitarist Øyvind Blomstrøm is taking us to the Big Dipper record store in Oslo, which is a very special place for the band. Blomstrøm is graciously taking us inside Big Dipper with some inside knowledge and favorite album picks, as well as through the band’s new solo album box set, which is out now.
Øyvind Blomstrøm:
To describe Orions Belte as a crate digging bunch on the eternal search for obscure singles would be a huge overstatement. We’re not hoarders, we have a modest amount of instruments and we don’t even view ourselves as gear heads. In other words, the collector’s gene is not really a thing in our band. But we do love a good record store.
One of the things I have looked for the most in secondhand record stores is unknown albums by artists or solo albums by members in a band I like. There is something charming about those kinds of albums. It says something about who the artists are in a different way than their million-selling hit records. It could be the first album by Yes, covering The Beatles (as so many other early prog and proto-metal bands did in the late 60’s) before they were the classic lineup and found the Yes sound. I like formative first albums, they are often weird and not fully representative for the band, maybe a bit awkward. Drifting in different directions. It could be the two first ELO albums (dry sounding, not that extravagant, but really cool songs). Or Alan Vega solo albums. Or the 80’s albums by Jackson Browne or Dylan that everybody told me was shit when I was growing up. Trying to find pop albums Sly & Robbie played on. Or Bessie Smith-collections that sometimes sounds better than any other music. Before the life-changing entrance of Spotify, I spent some years picking up these kinds of albums in the $2 cardboard boxes when I first moved to Oslo. This was a great (and cheap) way to get a deeper understanding of people’s careers.
But later on, vinyl sales started to increase and it once again became normal for new bands to etch their music on to 180g of plastic. This was the period it became really important to have independent record stores that sold new music on vinyl, not only the $2 boxes full of Hammond Hits and Guilty by Barbra and Barry. We had one, maybe two stores like this in the biggest cities in Norway and the frontrunner was the great Big Dipper in Oslo. A record store that has survived as an independent company for more than twenty years and is a staple when it comes to vinyl sales in Norway.
Started as a one-man operation in 1999, it has moved a couple of times before settling down in Møllergata 1, right in the middle of downtown Oslo now managed by nice guy Andreas Leine Jakobsen. Next door neighbors include a building from 1699 that has been housing a restaurant since the 1870’s and a strip joint since the 1990’s. After sales went down drastically during the pandemic, they had a big boost in web store sales, started home delivery and came out of the last couple of years expanding the store with more storage space, a bigger sales room and a hi-fi department selling high end speakers and turntables. Not only do they offer a huge range of music in all genres, used and new – they run their own podcast, do super funny online video content, help facilitate pressings, serve coffee to their nerdy customers and most importantly – hosts at least two in-store concerts a week. Their staff is carefully handpicked from some of Norway’s top underground bands, ex-antique store LP experts and several people from the younger generation of music lovers who has a broad knowledge in every thinkable genre. I have found amazing albums by Erkin Koray and T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo here, next to audiophile editions of Joni Mitchell albums and rare Anthrax pressings there.
I don’t know how many in-store gigs I have played there throughout the years, but I sure hope I have some more to come. This may sound like the biggest ass-kissing asking for more gigs (which of course is true) – but it is also an accurate description of a special record store where I go to buy my home stereo, find new favorite albums, or get information I can’t get anywhere else. Thanks for never quitting, Big Dipper. It’s inspiring for the rest of us.
Couldn’t leave without some albums, this is what I found:
* Patti Smith «Easter» (used) – Über classic album, amazing drum sound.
* Victor Jara «Manifesto Chile September 1973» (used) – Beautiful album by the late Chilean folk singer.
* Grace Jones «Island Life» (used) – Never had this compilation on vinyl. All time favorite album cover photo.
* Charley Pride «The best of Charley Pride vol. III» – Recorded at legendary RCA Studios, Nashville.
* Mamma Sani «La Musique Électronique Du Niger» – Tuareg music on an Italian organ with a rhythm box.
* Nas «Illmatic XX» – 20 year anniversary reissue with new artwork.
* Asnakech Worku «Asnakech» – Ethiopian singer and krar player, really cool album.
Møllergata 1, 0179 Oslo, Norway
About the solo albums box set:
When we set out to record our three separate solo albums, we knew it would be a big task. We also tried to let go of the control, so I didn’t hear any of the two albums that I wasn’t a part of until they were ready. I think it’s a wonderful way to grow as a band, and to trust each other so much that we would release whatever we made and called our solo album. I’m super proud of my own album which I did all by myself, but I’m equally proud of (and super fan of) the two other solo albums.
Chris Holm made a really cool album with some great vocal guests like Sondre Lerche and Sigrid Aase, and Kim Åge Furuhaug has made a wonderful instrumental album with some of Norway’s greatest jazz musicians. Produced and co-written by Matias Tellez (Girl In Red, A-ha etc.) who also mixed all three albums.
The cover shoot was done on a gig we did at Voss Gamle Kino, a beautiful old theatre in its original 50’s condition. They are shot by Nikolai Grasaasen who has done our Scenic Route I & II – streaming live shows and live albums (digital release). We used three headshots for the solo album covers, and the cover of the 3LP Box Set is a mashup of all three covers on top of each other making kind of a 3D-without-3D-glasses vibe. Cover design is by the magnificent Levi Bergqvist. Vinyl is pressed at MY45 in Germany on 180g colored vinyl matching the fonts on the album cover.
