Hope I Die Virgin have been - with their chaste and low key mix of rainy British indie and Dischord-inspired sound - a cult band reserved a few seeking souls. Two self released EP's, the most recent produced by Emil Nikolaisen of Serena Maneesh, received nods of approval from besserwissers everywhere. Still the band with the strange name have been walking by themselves in the murky mud on the banks of Oslo's underground, barely visible for the past two years.
Hope I Die Virgin let the world be and created an alternate reality in Harrys Gym studio through innumerable sessions in 2009 and 2010. Is Forever No Way was from the beginning a megalomaniac project - a fantasy of a record so extensive, so deep and discomposing that the world had never heard anything like it. The more time the band spent in the studio, the more self-exhausting their ambitions became. Every bass note, every last beating of the cymbals had been subjected to infinite interpretation and association processes. Every chord shift had been analyzed with astrological and scientific intent. The texts, on the other hand, are earthy, yet spiritual, and range from a homage to a Norwegian journalist's masculine beauty to unbridled drug fantasies from the perspective of a drug virgin.
All these corridors of musical excesses were finally fed to Christian Engfelts mixing table. There they were carefully combed and cut to generally understandable song structures, melodies and rhythms. Bob Weston (Shellac, Mission of Burma) sealed the madness with his mastering. He assures that the album is now ready to be set onto the public world and can be consumed via internet and radio, as well as analogue home systems. All the audience has to do is chose a format of choice; vinyl, cd or one of the modern digital solutions.
Now everyday people with everyday chores can live their everyday lives and enjoy Hope I Die Virgin's debut without having to face the qualms, mental as well as aesthetic, that lie behind. On the surface it seems like Is Forever No Way is a perfectly ordinary record.
www.myspace.com/hopeidievirgin
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