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Kings Of Convenience draw inspiration for rhythms, melodies and chords from all over: jazz, Brazilian music, house music. "We've never seen ourselves as a folk band but it sounds like folk to the untrained ear," says Eirik.You will, of course, be wondering what took Kings of Convenience so long. When 12 years elapse between albums, you might well assume that there has been some dramatic rift. And when you learn that an album has been recorded across five years in five different cities, you might expect something fiendishly ornate, larded with fancy production and guests galore.
But neither of those things are true. Peace or Love, Kings of Convenience's fourth album, sounds as fresh as spring: 11 songs about life and love with the alluring beauty, purity and emotional clarity that you would expect from Kings of Convenience. It's just that, for Eirik Glambek Bøe and Erlend Øye, making music together is never a straightforward business.
Eirik and Erlend met at school in Bergen, Norway and first performed together in the rock band Skog before breaking off and forming a duo in 1999. Their unimprovably titled 2001 debut, Quiet Is The New Loud, made them inadvertent trailblazers of a new wave of intimate, acoustic music. "We told our record label we'd need two weeks and it took three months, and then it just went downhill from there," Eirik laughs. Riot on an Empty Street came out in 2004 and Declaration of Dependence in 2009.
Peace or Love is the sound of two old friends exploring the latest phase of their lives together and finding new ways to capture that elusive magic. If it took a lot longer than they expected, well, so be it. The results justify the process. "We've frustrated a lot of people in the music industry because we refuse to fit into the framework of how things are done," says Eirik. "But that's why I still love what I do. I'm not jaded."
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Event venue
Birmingham Town Hall, City of Birmingham, Paradise Street, Birmingham, B1 2, United Kingdom
Tickets
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