Melbourne duo From Oslo buried themselves away in studio with producer Jez Giddings in working on their self-titled EP, making its impressive release on Friday. Their brand of grunge-punk isn’t just noise upon noise thrown at the listener; From Oslo have demonstrated a solid knack for writing catchy hooks and strong melodies that carry weight of their own.
Now that we’ve had the weekend to absorb the sounds of the From Oslo EP, we kick off the week with a deeper look at the making of the record, as Joshua De Laurentiis takes us through each track…
FAKING THE BENZ
“Faking the Benz” was the earliest song we completed out of the five tracks here, and the first we recorded. The initial riff came about after I ran octave pedal through a fuzz pedal and this massive sound came out. So it was pretty much the first of a batch of songs that we worked on to have that “wall of sound” beefiness to them.
NO SOUND
“No Sound” started out almost like a grungy folk/gospel song, because its genesis was a hushed, late night recording into a phone with an acoustic guitar. In keeping with that earlier incarnation, the penultimate recording actually had another verse as a softer introduction with just guitar and vocals, but we ended up cutting it off the final recording so the song’s intensity could kick in from the very start.
NOBODY’S ORIGINAL
“Nobody’s Original” is a two-and-a-half minute assault – we just kept it completely stripped back so it goes hell for leather from start to finish. I wrote the chorus for me to sing and a verse with the intention that Joel could scream it out like a demon – which he did – and it added an almost hardcore dynamic to it. So it became the first song where we share lead vocal duties, which is probably why it was so much fun to record.
BATTLE SCARS
“Battle Scars” is one of those songs that was a patchwork of little ideas. I’d been trying to work on a few different but similar riffs, without finding any point of cohesion. Then one night I sat down after a rough day, had a bunch of drinks, and the lyrics and structure just came together really quickly. I like how this one starts, with only the guitar’s upper octaves coming through for the initial part of the intro, then the drums and all the rest of the guitar frequencies kick in all at once.
QUICK FIX
The first time we started messing around with what would become “Quick Fix”, it was just a pretty simple verse riff that went straight into a down tempo jam, and it wasn’t really working. Ideas like that often don’t amount to anything, but once i found the chorus we rearranged the other parts so it took on a slighty more conventional structure. That jamming section didn’t really fit any more, but we still loved playing it so put it at the end of the song and retained the tempo change because tempo changes are fun!
From Oslo are on tour with their new EP through June and July! Catch the duo at the below venues:
June 3rd | Ric’s Bar, BRISBANE | Tix on the door
June 5th | Frankie’s Pizza, SYDNEY | Tix on the door
June 18th | Cherry Bar, MELBOURNE | Tix on the door
July 1st | Crown & Anchor, ADELAIDE | Tix on the door
July 15th | The Brisbane Hotel, HOBART | Tix on the door
July 16th | The Croxton, MELBOURNE | Tix from Oztix
with Shihad and Grenadiers
Header Image: Tim Ware Photography
———-
