«Hun synger fint, arrangementene er sofistikerte og særdeles smakfulle, produksjonen til Even Ormestad (Jaga Jazzist, aha) er nydelig og det musikalske tonefølget fra en rekke sjangerfrie, unge jazzmusikanter som Ivar Myrset Asheim, Magnus Murphy Joelson, Jenny Berger Myhre og Sander Eriksen Nordahl er av det flotte og empatiske slaget. Til sammen har det ført til et møte med en svært så lovende og særegen artist som det skal bli veldig spennende å følge i åra som kommer, det være seg som popartist eller samtidskomponist. Marte Røyeng er ei flott stemme som har kommet for å bli - veldig lenge.»
In a new live session video of her song "Shake Yourself Awake», Norwegian singer/songwriter Marte Røyeng displays timeless musical storytelling on loss and human resilience.
«On this haunted beach / I leave my dreams behind» These are the opening lines of Marte Røyeng’s modern-yet-timeless travelling song «Shake Yourself Awake», taken from her debut album "Reach" that was released earlier this year. Marte recently posted a live session video of the song, performing alongside guitarist Bendik Bergestig in an Oslo apartment. The duo carefully builds around the evocative lyrics, moving from a gentle simplicity into a striking musical exclamation.
«I was washed up on the shore / my dreams lay scattered around me / too wild to carry with me into foreign land»
The song was written through perspective of a boat refugee, who arrives on a foreign shore and takes to the road, accompanied only by the ghosts of a previous life. Yet the urge to continue forwards is stronger than the temptation of escaping backwards into past dreams. From the depths of Røyeng's sombre and poetic lyrics arises a striking hommage to the grit of the human spirit.
«So I shake myself awake / some dreams you’re meant to follow / Some the waves will break»
This fragile yet forceful performance takes us into the mind and memory of a persistent walker. Someone who is embracing the changes that has forced them to break up from all they had known, but who is determined to reach towards a new life.
Norwegian singer, songwriter and composer Marte Røyeng's debut as an album artist comes with «Reach» (Oslo Session Recordings). Produced by Even Ormestad, the album was recorded in Albatross Recorders, Oslo, and in the analogue atmosphere of Athletic Sound in the town of Halden, Norway. It includes ten original tracks written by Røyeng.
Directed, shot and edited by Malin Christin Longva Animations by Sunniva Mellbye (Release date: June 30th 2017)
While You Can (No One Visual EP pt. 3) Powerful finale of Marte Røyeng's music video trilogy
Activism, marching soldiers, a lake being sprayed with poison. Ghosts of the past from archive film blends into modern people. A woman's silhouette is filled with a glittering cosmos.
What comes after fear? What is next, when you are finally ready to meet the world? After the lonely and introspective passivity in the visual EP's first part, No One, and the movement in the journey away from self-absorbation in part two, The Key, this is the question posed in part three, While You Can.
The video for While You Can is striking in the way it merges together past and present, extreme situations and small everyday joys, nature and industry, and the petals of a flower with the entire universe. "You have so much inside you", the images seem to say.
The trilogy is about breaking out of the idea of being "no one" – about growth, and realizing that where you used to feel afraid and alone, there is now the bigger picture and the sensation of all the powerful things you are capable of doing.
Perhaps "art films with music" fits better than "music videos" as a description for No One Visual EP. Marte Røyeng's motivation to create visual companions for all three tracks on her debut EP came from the opportunity to tell more than the music alone can do. She gave the director free rein to elaborate on the EP's theme of transitioning from "no one" into "someone".
"The title alone, While You Can, gave me a lot to work with," says Malin Christin Longva, who has directed, shot and edited all the videos in the trilogy – a work that began in the fall of 2016. "While You Can is a call to action, encouraging people to do lots of things: to be an activist, to love, to create. It's not really important what it is, only that you do it," says the filmmaker.
Longva continues: "I wanted pictures of activism, war, submission, and portraits of people. I've used archive films from different wars, in Africa, the First World War and D-Day." In While You Can we see environmental destruction alongside subtle hints towards the climate change crisis. "I have wished to bring forward the environmental debate from a new perspective, with a new point of view. In poetry, people are able to say things in a new manner, creating new images. I believe in my own ability to tell something in a new way," she says.
"I see No One Visual EP just as much an independent work of film art, as a trilogy of music videos for me as a pop artist," says Marte Røyeng. "The video for While You Can, for example, is much more charged with optimism than the song lyrics are." In the song, Røyeng bittersweetly depicts that which is about to sink. The video, on the other hand, focuses on encouraging people to stand up. "Speak while you can."
Filmmaker Longva concludes: "When it comes to choices you have to make in life, it is not about what you believe you'll never be able to do. It is about doing something. Not getting stuck in a thought about what it is supposed to lead to. Finding out 'what is vital, what do I believe in?'. And then a change may happen. But whether it does is beyond our control. I just have to do what I believe in."
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No One, Marte Røyeng's debut-EP, was released in January 2017 (Groundling), is produced by Thom Hell and recorded in Fersk Lyd. While You Can features Olaf Olsen on drums and Ole-Henrik Moe on strings. Marte Røyeng has written the lyrics, music and string arrangements.
