Formed at the end of 2017 on the foundation of friendship and cultural affinities developed while taking part in the music collective “Kono Dischi“, Biella, Italy based NORSE deliver a heart-rending, gloomy, psychedelic hardcore with some post-punk and shoegaze influences. Their new EP “blu” comes as one of this year’s most compelling and deep dark post hardcore offerings, bringing all the standards of the genre, but with modern sound, sinister atmosphere and almost monumental feel. To celebrate, we have teamed up with NORSE to give you an insightful first hand take on their story, local music community, and the cohesive new masterpiece, available now via Konodischi, Vina Records, Fresh Outbreak Records, Longrail Records, The Ghost is Clear Records, Tomb Tree Tapes, and Clever Eagle Records.
Kono Dischi label was born in 2015 as a response to the needs of many local musicians sharing similar experiences and knowledge. We sat down with Edoardo, one of the main personas behind the project and also a member of NORSE, to share the story of their craft and give us a proper insight into their local cultural scene.
“During these years we developed the project with the aim to be eventually able to work on every step of the production of an album.” – says Edoardo. “Thanks to this horizontal approach, every band that joins the collective can actively help the others, bringing new skills, abilities and contacts. This idea gave life to a lot of side activities inside Kono, like a homemade recording studio with analog machines, loud amps and weed, freely used by all the bands. What comes out of the “Nostudio rec.” is then moulded into a physical release such as tape cassettes, vynil LPs or shaped into videoclips. We try to have care about every little piece of the whole, working on visuals and cover arts, printing t-shirts and merch thanks to the screen printing studio Desert Serigrafia Casalinga.”
𝐵𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑓𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑗𝑒𝑐𝑡, 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑘𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑠 𝑢𝑠 𝑡𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑔𝑢𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐.
While Kono might look like a label, it is not focused on a specific genre but on the way we look at and think of music. Completely DIY, where every band must contribute to the develope of the project as they can.
The bands orbiting around this reality can range from the psychedelic rock of Sabbia to the stoner of Concrete Mountain, from the dark electronic of Crushed Curcuma to the alt-folk of HO.BO.
𝐼𝑛 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝐵𝑖𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑎, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡 𝑡𝑜𝑤𝑎𝑟𝑑𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘𝑒𝑡 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐 𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑧𝑒𝑟𝑜
…especially regarding the strictly political aspect of an area governed by the right (more or less “centrist”). This is where the necessity to bond between people who share similar views about music and the way to propose it arises, in a DIY manner totally unbound from compromises.
In these pandemic times of our lives, live music, an essential stress valve to the balance needed in order to keep the project productive and that helps in widening contacts, is in fact stopped to a halt. But from this situation new proposals and alternatives are born, that try to keep alive a vital net, aiming at reciprocal support and inter-connections between different bands and territorial realities. Among these we would like to name Storm{O}’s new release “Reboot System” in help to “Nessuna da sola” (Nobody Left Alone), a campaign in support of the sexworkers’ world.
All of this is fundamental to the release of “blu”, our last Wp published the 17th of October, also thanks to other labels, all of them part of an independent and international culture, that coworked to the production of our music. (Fresh Outbreak Records, Vina Records, Longrail Records, Tomb Tree Tapes, Clever Eagle Records and The Ghost is Clear Records).
This strengthens the idea of self-production and knowledge sharing, to grow what is generally known as “scene”. As time goes we believe more and more that all of this has to be liberated from stylistic clichés to promote an attitude. In short, to identify ourselves in music intended more as “how” it’s made than “what” it’s played.
