Attention please, we're Norwegian
Kings of Convenience make T.O debut
Touring new Riot on an Empty Street album
VIT WAGNER
POP MUSIC CRITIC

Kings of Convenience, the Norwegian duo of Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe, spin hushed, intimately phrased pop songs rooted in the harmonious byplay of their softspoken vocals and acoustic guitars.And they would like to keep it that way. Audience participation during tonight's sold out set at Lee's Palace is neither required nor sought. Rapt attention, on the other hand, will be greatly appreciated."The beginnings of our concerts are quite slow and quiet," says Øye on the line from a tour stop in Washington, D.C."But everyone is so into taking pictures with their mobile phones that there are all these weird sounds coming from the audience. It becomes a whole little percussion element of its own. And it's really irritating. So we're asking people to take their pictures during the more upbeat numbers at the end of our concert."Got that?Kings of Convenience are touring in support of last year's Riot on an Empty Street, the follow-up to Quiet is the New Loud, the 2001 breakthrough that had critics reaching for comparisons to Simon and Garfunkel, Scottish pop ensemble Belle & Sebastian and influential, '70s English singer/songwriter Nick Drake."We always have people asking us about folk music," says Øye. "But for me, folk music is much more traditional than what we do. It was never our intention to be traditional."Do you call Nick Drake folk music? I guess you don't. It's the same with us."While tonight's show marks the Toronto debut of Kings of Convenience, Øye, working his side project as a DJ, opened for the Rapture and the Constantines at the Opera House a couple of years back.Øye, who now resides in Berlin, and Bøe, a psychology student who still lives in their hometown of Bergen, do have a compelling Toronto connection, however, in the lithe form of Leslie Feist, who co-wrote and sings backup on two songs from Riot on an Empty Street. When Øye met Feist during a music festival in Portugal in late 2002, she gave him a demo that includes songs that would eventually end up on Let It Die, her widely praised album of last year. Like a lot of other listeners, he was instantly smitten."While we were doing (Riot on an Empty Street), we were emailing back and forth about various other things and she said, `If you ever need a vocalist ...' It was more like a joke, really. But we thought that might be a good idea. And then a week later she was in Bergen."We didn't give her any instruction. She came up with amazing suggestions. She just took control. That's what we wanted. We wanted someone to come in and do something creative. And she really rose to the occasion."Like Feist, whose music has popped up on the popular Fox series The OC, Kings of Convenience are as likely to have their songs spun on TV as on the radio. It's a bonus, even if Øye remains unconvinced of the potential benefits."I've been to L.A. several times," he says. "You meet all these music supervisors. They're all really cool people, laid back and fun to hang out with. They just try to push good music whenever they can."I'm still not sure how amazing it is to have your songs on terrible TV shows. We've been fortunate to have our songs on good-quality stuff like Six Feet Under. But I'm not sure how many people discover your music that way. They play your music, but they don't' shout your name or go out of their way to tell people what it is."

Additional articles by Vit Wagner