Japan release 2007
Vinyl Release 2019 - Sand Never Sets
Curated by Sondre Lerche
For many, many years the music of House Of Hiss was a well-kept secret among the musicians who recorded at Gjøa and Duper studios in Bergen, Norway at the turn of the century. It must’ve been around 1999 that I first got to hear some of these songs, by way of my guru and mentor at the time, the musical shaman, producer HP Gundersen. I was 16, recording what was to become my debut album, Faces Down, co-produced by HP and the wizard Jørgen Trœen at Duper Studio. Next-door, in Gjøa Studio, was the young producer Kato Ådland, my guitar player at the time, who since has served my music in many capacities, most recently as producer on my four latest albums. From these three peculiar characters I kept learning about a shy uncle from England who would occasionally come to visit our little town to record his bisarre and beautiful miniature songs and symphonies. Together these four made up the unlikely quartet that became House Of Hiss. Their first album No-Fi, from which many of the songs on this album originate, was never released. It was the most exquisite, luxurious little secret enjoyed by myself and a few lucky others over the years. It didn’t seem fair. When I heard the song Shang, sung by Sean O’Hagan from The High Llamas, my favorite band at the time, my world suddenly got a lot smaller, and my horizon a lot bigger.
Alisdair’s vast array of influences, and his low-key sensibility must’ve quietly expanded all of our horizons in various ways - certainly mine. In Kato, Jørgen and HP, Alisdair had connected with a trio of adventurous partners, up for the challenge of deconstructing and rebuilding his avant garde easy listening ditties into House Of Hiss - with a little help from a cast of their favorite musical friends. It was perhaps Alisdair's intricate, yet affable songs, and the ambitious, playful recordings of House Of Hiss that best encapsulated the range of influences and sounds that informed much of the music that would result from this tiny musical scene for a few years into the new millennium. Which is why I’ve been hoping for an opportunity just like this to share the glorious music of House Of Hiss with the world beyond those studio walls.
Please enjoy,
- Sondre Lerche, Curator