Oral Constitution

Despite my ovious interests in both politics and history this is not going to be a blog about the oral constitution of the Irriquois, even if it sounds very exciting. No, this is about a band I had forgotten.

Oral Constitution was a sort of industrial/goth/neo folk band from Haugesund, on the west coast of Norway. They existed from 1992-1997 and managed to put out several albums and an E.P., as well as being remixed by Genesis P-Orridge. Their apex, atleast in terms of attention came with the album Høgdapreik ("talking about Høgda" in English), which took a great deal of inspiration by the infamous norwegien telephone terrorist Svend Høgda. Høgda became a national celebrity for a flurry of telephone activities in the nineties. He called in false alarms to the police, ordered caskets for various people and other such things. He ended up in jail for it, and Oral Constitution managed to stirr some controversy by dedicating an album to his activities.

Their music has been compared to Current 93, Diamanda Galás and Death in June. Personally I see the Current 93 and Diamanda Galás comparisons as especially relevant. Early Current 93 in particular. It is dark, experimental, playfull, psychedelic and strange. Their first EP Bibelpreik ("bible talk") is certainly their finest work, showing musical affinities and a level of concentration I can't hear in the rest of their work. Granted I have not heard everything, but while this first E.P. is restrained and consistent in mood the other tracks I have heard certainly fall more in the psychotic maniacs-category than mood music. I would recommend bibelpreik to anyone who appreciates Current 93. But it's not a simple copy, there are elements of old school goth in there as well. There are other elements in there as well, even ambient, but there are certainly enough musical similarities to grant a comparison. Except that it's actually darker than Current 93, and more primitive.

Luckily for you I have even managed to track down a copy of this E.P. Floating around in cyberspace, courtesy of this blog. Note that I did not upload this .zip or chose the medium for upload so I take no responsibility for it whatsoever. But judging from experience it should be entirely safe. Click this link to go to the .zip.

Certainly there are good tracks on their other releases, but the production is somewhat inconsistent. Tracks like Für Åse is great, while Galloping Negroes is just silly, with the Stomach Composer somewhere in between. In general the folkish and goth tracks are good, while the more industrial inspired tracks are not so well executed. If you stumble upon something out there, you should certainly give it a chance however. Chances are you haven't heard many bands like them before. However I feel an obligation to point out that the female singer (as opposed to the male singer) has an accent from the other side of the moon or something. And neither the male or the female singer can actually sing, nor is the guitar playing exactly excellent in any way - but I guess that's quite common in this kind of music. It might be an aquired taste...