By Jorge Hernandez
Oh, those happy-go-lucky Scandinavians and their music-loving ways, living in utopia as they presumably do, with their low crime rate, modular furniture and blue-eyed soul. It’s not hard to imagine folk, freak-jazz, funk, disco and house music flowing freely on tap. While Norwegian star-dust dandies Todd Terje, Lindstrom, Rune Lindbaek, Royksopp, and Annie are beaming their beats from a mirror-ball planet, Mungolian Jet Set’s sticky grooves sound like something that bubbles up from a mossy well in a lost forest. We Gave it All Away and Now We Are Taking It Back collects 16 remixes and collaborations of uncut internationalist, psychedelic, funk on a double CD. On “Creepy,” a lil DC Go-Go kicks through; “Original Highway Delight” sounds like a stomping Italo/Hi-NRG homage to Patrick Cowley; “Moon Song (The Gospel According To Mung)” bumps an ambient dub; and Bob Marley gets a breakbeat reset on “Could You Be Loved.”
At the center of all the fantastic mayhem are Pal Nyhus, aka DJ Strangefruit and knob jockey Knut Saevik. For the last few years, Knut has built his cred as a producer, working with most of his Nordic pals; whereas, Pal has a long history of rowdy DJ sets and more than a few Asiatic outfits. Earlier this summer we went in search of their secret sauce. We found Pal chillin’ with his daughter at his mom’s house, a few miles north of Oslo.
URB: There’s some crazy music on these 16 tracks….
NYHUS: Sometimes when the music gets too serious, I’d say, “We need a little bit of comedy in here.” It’s just how Knut and I get along and make music. We start with an idea, play around with it, and see where it goes. He’s the technical genius. I’m not technical at all. I do play stuff, but he’s like a super-engineer; he’s worked on death metal and studied classical music. We try to put all of this in our music.
URB: Did you study music?
NYHUS: No, I just listen. I studied it as a kind of nerd, more into the pop-art element to it. I don’t know notes. My angle is just turntables, playing records.
URB: How did you start?
NYHUS: It was like a calling, like they say. I heard some old D-train records, a lot of the stuff from the 80’s. The charts were very eclectic then. There were some weird things on the radio, and I really started to like this music.
URB: How’d you buy records before the Internet?
NYHUS: Haha. There was a record store we used to go to. We used to wait until the records went on sale, because you know, those import prices are not cheap!
URB: There’s a lot of that Garage/Loft vibe on these two CDs; there must’ve been a lot of Prelude, West End, Salsoul vinyl in those import stacks.
NYHUS: A friend of mine had an older brother, and he had this tape, which was just like shockingly good and it was all that stuff. We didn’t know what it was, it sounded like alien music to me. I spent ages hunting down these records–that whole trainspotting thing. It affected how I digested music.
URB: What’s this track that sounds like it’s got a Sylvester sample in it?
NYHUS: The vocal is actually me. I did all the vocals on most of these tracks.
URB: That’s you? You sound like Sylvester.
NYHUS: We wanted to make it sound like a sample. There’s a lot going on there. It’s like the imaginary orchestra in my head.
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