Unrest is the first solo album of Kings of Convenience singer Erlend Øye . It's a bit funny disco album, which has been recorded in 10 different cities with 10 different deejays, which includes Schneider TM en Mr Velcro Fastener. This fast workstyle fits well with the currently living in Berlin restless Norwegian. There's nowhere he wants to stay long, fearing too much distraction and seduction and mainly fearing that new made friends will find out that he's really weird.

door Monique Aert

Øye thinks Unrest is both a succes as a failure. "I wanted to make a record that fills the dancefloors. It has turned out it isn't such a record. It's a record you listen to at home, or in the car when you're going to a club. The record is too soft. That's my own fault. I shouldn't have tried to put even more melody in all the songs. On top of that: all the deejays I worked with were constantly thinking that they were working with the "Kings of Convenience", so they were working on something soft. The succes of the record is that it is one piece, it sounds like a whole, not like a collection of songs. I think it's very important the album sounds like a whole. In "Quiet is the new Loud" there's almost no variation. That's fine to me. Records have to sound like a whole. Variation needs to be in your cd collection. It's deadly when people just like the 11th song on the album. Just like they love any 11th song on any album. A record of my hand needs to jump in its whole out of your collection. I think it's a nice idea that boys play my record for their girlfriend, and that the girlfriend will think that he's so sweet and sensitive. Which feeling I want to create with "Unrest" is not clear to me yet. That will come soon. Right now I'm glad that it sounds like a whole. "Unrest", at which I've worked with 10 different deejays, could have resulted in 10 totally different song. But with whoever I'm in the studio, you hear my part of the work in every song. Well, you know: I'm not a control freak. I don't trust people really fast. I should change that.

Although cool deejays worked on "Unrest", it sounds a bit like the eighties. "The eighties are just in again. It has been long enough to let it be in again. The music of the eighties sounds fresh. You can now really rate what was good and what was bad. Modern Talking was really bad. You'll hear that nowadays. Michael Jackson... I used to think Michael Jackson was as bad as Modern Talking. Now I hear that Michael Jackson created really good music, with songs like Billy Jean. It's really cool that Jackson sang that his son wasn't his child. Now we know better (laughs). Although it wasn't his child, he'll probably really wanted to have the child. He would probably have adopted it.

There's one band from the eighties that still has a special meaning for Erlend. He's still a really big fan of A-Ha. "I have begged my mum to let me buy 'Hunting High And Low'. After a long time she took me to the gas station where I bought the record. My mum bought 'The Best of Leonard Cohen'. Now the catch: I was allowed to play my record as many times as I wanted, but only if 'The best of Leonard Cohen' was played after that. I became crazy. But mama said: 'Deal is a deal. First we play your cd, then we play mine.' That musical and probably also pedagogical responsible compromise had taken revenge. You can say that with Kings of Convenience my serious Leonard Cohen side comes out, and with Unrest my poppy A-ha. To go further: 'Unrest' is my revenge in the name of A-ha. Do you remember when those two beautiful boys of A-ha were always on the foreground and the one who wrote the songs, the less beautiful guitarist whose name everyone has forgotten not? Now, in my band there are no beautiful boys on the foreground. Me, the ugly nerd, is in the picture. And I wrote all the songs myself! 'Unrest' is my revenge, in the name of all nerds."

Original version in Dutch
Translated by: Stefan Meeuws