Artist: The Little Hands of Asphalt
Title: Accidents & Time / The Buildings, Then the Trees
Format: Digital single
Cat#: Fika080SG5
Release date: 20th March 2020
Bandcamp | Spotify
The full length record, Half Empty, will be released digitally in five parts, before being released on vinyl on April 3rd on Fika Recordings and the Norwegian label Furuberget. These songs are the first release from Little Hands of Asphalt since 2012. And the band picks up the thread where they left off; low-key pearls with hints of indie and Americana, but primarily classic, timeless pop.
The Little Hands of Asphalt are Sjur Lyseid's solo project, whom released two records and a couple of EPs in the period 2009-2012. Floors, from 2012, received critical acclaim in Lyseid’s home of Norway, and was voted the sixth best record of the year in the Norwegian national newspaper VG. Press praised Lyseid's melodic qualities; and was been frequently highlighted as one of Norway's sharpest songwriters in English. The band toured most major festivals in Norway, and a lot on the continent. Since then, the project has been quiet, and Lyseid has primarily worked as a producer and songwriter for other artists at this Six Feet Over studios in Oslo. Now he's back in front of the glass, with what may be the project's strongest songs ever.
Sjur introduces the final two tracks of the LP:
Accidents & Time
This is the worst song on the album. I know most songwriter’s will say things like: “They’re all my babies, I can’t choose between my babies”. I also know they’ll be lying. Of course we have our favorites, but also some we for some reason struggle with, even after the fact. The reason for you disliking it as a writer can be completely unfounded, or at least not grounded in any valid terms as far as a listener goes. There might be an instrumental part you feel like you couldn’t quite nail, or that the lyrics didn’t really click with you immediately, or that the mix just didn’t sound right no matter how it actually sounded. Or that you were just really hung over the day you recorded it. To me, that song was sadly Accidents & Time (and all of the above is true). For a lot of people involved with the making of the album, it’s their favorite. Which just goes to show you can’t really be the judge of your own art, a fact that is both inspiring and scary. Who knows, maybe in time I’ll learn to appreciate it as well. A big thanks to Morten Myklebust, who in about half an hour learned how to play the guitar part I had been practicing for years, and recorded it effortlessly in the half hour after that, on Nils’s great grandfather’s old archtop from 1911.
The Buildings, Then the Trees
I breathe in.
I had written something else for this song, but it seems so mundane now. Like everything else it took on a new sense of insignificance. And prophecy, all at once. But finding a language for how much things have changed with this slo-mo apocalypse is impossible.I breathe out.
A language for how I feel so privileged. To have shelter, to have a family, to live in such a rich society with all of its safety nets. How I think about those who don't. How this privilege doesn't make me any less lost and confused with what's happening.I breathe in.
For how this video is the very last thing I did at the studio before Oslo went into near total lockdown. How it seemed at the time like such an awkward thing to do, to film myself singing all alone one late night. How a week later, everyone wallows in their own solitude, how mostly every musician on the planet is posting recordings from their living rooms.I breathe out.
For how I take my daily night walks while I still can, how I put my headphones on like I always do, how I can't find any music that can infuse meaning into this whole situation. How this most human of impulses, to attach meaning and patterns to things, is still at work in my brain.I breathe in.
For how I strangely feel more alive than ever. How we put all our efforts and energy into making our kids feel safe, while we worry about how the foreseeable future shrunk so much in just one week. How my daughter said "I'll always remember this beautiful spring day". How the little one just started crawling around the living room floor. How we have so much love and time for each other, now that we don't have to spread as thin. How so much still depends on perspective.I breathe out.
For how the record will still come out in the midst of all this. How insignificant that feels. How that might change once we're through the tunnel. How it might not. How we have to go on with our plans, with what seems like our petty little lives, with the futile songs we sing, with our friendships, with our attempts to come out better and stronger on the other side. How nothing's bottomless.How we should try to articulate things as best we can, and seek forgiveness when we try to put it into words, but fail. Forgive me.
I can still breathe.