Please consider joining the email list:

A value is required.Invalid format.

Add me remove

Press:

Wire
"More Intelligent sweetness from Opsvik & Jennings, whose music basks on a lawn of pop, enjoying an eternal summer evening of long shadows"

MilkFactory.co.uk
"Building on what they established with Commuter Anthems, yet bringing in more ambitious and rich forms, Opsvik and Jennings have, with this third album, created a clever and mature record."

PopMatters.com
"Like Battles somehow blissed-out and sedated, Opsvik & Jennings start from a single rhythm and end up with an instrumental album of exquisite pop deconstruction"

Milk Milk Lemonade:
"It's not often we find ourselves delving into completely instrumental, ambient music but when an acoustic forefront is blended so warmly into an experimental electronic backdrop, the distraction can be beautiful... and A Dream I Used To Remember is just the preoccupation we needed"

Foxy Digitalis
"To call what they do post-rock isn’t entirely inaccurate, but may be somewhat misleading as their music certainly doesn’t fall into that brand of tired, crescendo-filled instrumental rock that has come to typify this “genre"

Forth Worth Weekly
"The whole thing feels epic, down to the elegiac melody that they overlay with percussion clatter on the closing “Sunroad.” Overall, it’s a dream worth remembering"

SicMagazine.net
"And in ‘Sunroad’ they have the most achingly wonderful closing track of the year, too."

Ghettoblaster
"And the results are nothing short of beautiful"

Jezebel Music.com:
"A Dream I Used To Remember is a dense, fussed-over, yet relaxed and satisfying album"

All About Jazz (Troy Collins):
"Bursting with verdant Americana, pastoral folk and nostalgic old world ambience, these pieces sit comfortably alongside the work of their indie rock brethren... making A Dream I Used To Remember a delightfully quirky, but always accessible instrumental pop record."

Music Meltdown
"It will leave you full of profound wonder and odd joy."

Still Single
"This is music that’s tough to write about without damning it with faint praise, but this record is a really pleasant experience that stands up to repeated listens"

All About Jazz (Mark Turner):
"The sets ends gloriously with the emotive "Sunroad," a simple repeating design where the duo improvises with multiple sounds. It is affecting and demonstrative of the duo's creativity. Proving that in the end, it is not about the technology or an instrument, but what and how the musician creates with it."

Sonic Curiosity
"These compositions are eccentric and pursue oddball expressions of cerebral content. Their appeal lies in their unconventional nature. Their beauty arises from unexpected solidarity between contrasting elements."

SitcomSerf.com
"Something in it is just really lovely; I am irrationally attached to it."

DasKlienicum Blog (in German)
"Opsvik & Jennings create new worlds. Indeed, new worlds. "

Aftenposten (in Norwegian)
"On their third release Opsvik & Jennings display an uniqueness that impress" (6 out of 6 stars)

Subjectivisten (in Dutch)
"Intriguing dream music"

El Intruso (in Spanish)
"Dreamlike aesthetic, presented without false pathos"

 

 

 

Opsvik & Jennings
A DREAM I USED TO REMEMBER
(LLCD007, LLVL001)

Eivind Opsvik and Aaron Jennings have teamed up for their third album.  Over the years, their sound and approach to music making has been constantly changing, but it always seems to retain a unique quality - they gravitate towards melodies that grow on the listener over time.  The wonderfully strange and timeless themes juxtaposed with sound experimentation seem to come from a wide variety of influences.  One might hear the echo of a Richard Strauss horn fanfare, or the admiration of a guitar sound from a record by The Byrds, or a childhood fascination with songs from those 40's Disney cartoons... you never know.

The band’s first album, “Fløyel Files” (2005), was the most software based of their albums, and really belongs in the electronica category.  Wire (UK) concluded: "Ambient without wandering, sweet but not sickly, quirky yet never wacky, this is a beautifully paced piece of work”. 
After that, categorization became more difficult. Their second album, “Commuter Anthems”(2007), was released on the prestigious Rune Grammofon label. It had the quality of being molded and crafted with software using a “cut and paste” software approach, but was recorded primarily with real instruments, and took on a more organic feel. The New York Times wrote: "They’re tidy and sweet, calling attention to their design, but they don’t want to be understood too easily". 

For the new album “A Dream I Used to Remember”, released on Loyal Label, the two moved even further away from their original fascination with the beeps and bleeps of electronic music to have more of a “full band” type approach.  Leaning more towards an experimental pop sound of sorts, they spent countless hours in 2007 and 2008 constructing ten memorable themes - experimenting with recording techniques and orchestrations, making use of guitars, upright bass, old school keyboards and electronics, banjos, and a choir.  The result is their most thematically focused album to date where each songs complements and leads to the next and the whole record plays down like a story.  It is also the first time Opsvik & Jennings release their album on vinyl (LP), in addition to CD and downloads.

01. A Dream I Used to Remember
02. Canada
03. Swimming Back into the Picture
04. Anchor Lane Parade
05. Windswept
06. Steam and Bells
07. Sleepy Rush
08. The Good Eye
09. September And Starry-eyed
10. Sunroad

All songs written by Opsvik & Jennings

Performed, Recorded, Mixed and Produced by Opsvik & Jennings
Recorded at various locations in New York City, USA and Oslo, Norway in 2007 and 2008

 

 

Copyright 2008 Loyal Label LLC