
We’ve had some serious stuff recently so here’s something completely different.
I was interested to learn that Lotte (Sollie) is from the small town of Jessheim, to the north of Oslo and close to its airport, a place I had the pleasure of visiting last August to see a performance at a small festival the town hosts which coincided with the Øya Festival in Oslo.
Lotte was relatively unknown until NRK P3 (the Norwegian equivalent of BBC Radio 1), awarded her the distinction of being ‘Best New Artist of the Month’ for April 2020. Following this award her singles ‘Fly’ and ‘Show Me Shadows’ have been rotated heavily on the radio station.
She released her new track ‘Mess’ on May 15th, what she describes as homage to everything imperfect in a world striving for ultimate perfection. The song is a reminder that nothing is useless despite not being conventionally beautiful on the surface. Quite a hard sell in Norway, where most things are conventionally beautiful. Well, compared with somewhere like Rochdale, anyway.
In her own words, "the song is inspired by self-reflection and an understanding that no one is perfect including myself.’Mess' is a half-acoustic feel good pop track which draws inspiration from hip-hop and pop-punk as well as the music I listened to as a child. It’s a very personal message from me.”
And yes, it is a bit of a mess. She’s recorded well back in the mix and after an instrumental opening appears to sing “Pretend/again/being/like them…fake friends …”, and then other stuff. Not really sure. Probably my hearing.
After that it settles into a predictable but very appealing toon, backed up by a synth with the power of a Wurlitzer organ, before Lotte concludes that “we’re all a mess”.
Not the sort of thing that Cohen might have written but the young folk who will have this on repeat won’t care too much about that.
Find her on Facebook.