A new band has risen from the ashes of Norway’s maybe most spectacular and unique band, – at least the most unique band that almost all norwegians have heard and know about. The band I’m talking about is Gaate, a band that mixed hard, alternative rock/metal with traditional norwegian folk music. Although I like Gaate a lot, I’ve never written about them, – they were to big, popular and famous for this blog, I guess….
The new band is called 22, and has two central figures from Gaate involved. The charismatic guitarist Magnus Robot Børmark and “bandleader” Sveinung Sundli has made a new band together with Mats Paulsen (I think he plays/played in the great Suzuka, also from Trondheim, Norway) and Andreas Kjøl Berg. The man who sings with this fantastic voice on the songs presented here is italian Jonathan Altieri, a street singer the guys met strangely in Barcelona. He moved with the band to Trondheim, but now he has fled through the window (!) with his girlfriend, and the band is looking for a new singer…
In my ears, 22 sound not too far away from Gaate or maybe like a faster version of Sigur Ros?
They sound good.

Here are some tracks from 22:
22 – 22a
22 – 22b
(clever titles!)

Both songs are from 22’s myspace pages, where there’s a third song for streaming.

Magnus also has a electronic solo sideproject called MAGWERK. Here’s a track from him called “EBM og Gud” (“EBM and God”)
Magwerk – ebm og Gud
from bandsite

Sveinung and his sister, the fantastic vocalist in Gaate, Gunnhild.

You can watch/download a video of Gaate’s song “Bendik og Årolilja” (“Bendik and Årolilja”)here, and stream a video of “sjå attende” (“look back”)here. Gaate’s website is here: http://www.gaate.no, where there are more videos.