Stina Stjern

Norwegian artist Stina Stjern wrote most of her new album when she lived in Brooklyn, New York. The album is called “Days Like Waves”, and even though this stands out as her debut album, Stina’s experience from Quintrophenia, Supervixen and art projects such as Little Sister makes it right to say that this is definitely not her debut as an artist.

Stina Stjern (“Stjern” is her Grandmother’s maiden name) moved to Copenhagen with a jazz diploma in her back pocket, as well as one full-length with Quintrophenia and another full-length with Supervixen. In Copenhagen her musical network was practically absent. But sometimes it is a good thing to be a musical hermit. And in the blink of an eye, standing on her own feet and being a sucker for good melodies, the musical spree of Stina Stjern was born. After a year and a half in Copenhagen Stina packed up to move again, this time to Brooklyn, New York. The idea with the journey was to write material for her upcoming album in a new setting devoid of distractions.

She settled into an apartment in Bushwick, commonly referred to by locals as one of the two “hipster condos” on McKibbin Street (look it up on Wikipedia under “248 McKibbin”), just a stone’s throw away from where Jay-Z grew up. Stina actually used to jog the very same street where the video for “Hard Knock Life” got filmed– kind of worth mentioning since, as all other girls her age, Stina grew up loving the musical of which the song has its origin. And it was in this mixture of hard ghetto lifestyle and hipster paradise, the foundation for her debut album started to take shape. But as we all know, New York has more to offer than indie rock and gangster posses. As the Big Apple stands out as a melting pot of an overwhelmingly large amount of possible cultural digestions, the city laid out a great foundation for Stina Stjern’s music.

Stina Stjern is now back in Scandinavia. She is still based in Copenhagen, but she tends to go back to Norway to do countless projects. One of many being the contemporary dance performance Little Sister. In between her many projects, Stina has spent the last year recording her debut album in Taakeheimen, Oslo, together with bandmembers Kyrre Laastad and Ola Høyer. Sound genius and long time friend Marcus Forsgren (The Lionheart Brothers, Jaga Jazzist) turned (and tuned) the knobs. In addition Ole-Henrik Moe, Anita Kaasbøll and Øystein Moen have contributed with their talents. The compositions from her time in New York took a long time to hatch, but when Stina Stjern first sets out to do a project; she does it with great perfection.

Her album is called “Days Like Waves” and on this album Stina is inspired by many aspects in life. Mazzy Star is definitely a band one may hear that Stina Stjern is inspired by. But in Brooklyn, Stina also enjoyed spending her Sundays at Cinders Gallery, a tiny art gallery in Havemeyer Street, which many exhibitions most definitely inspired some of her compositions. At the same time Stina has spent countless hours listening to the likes of Nico, Yo La Tengo and John Cale. But for Stina it is important to not limit her musical inspirations. It is therefore just as right to say that the knitting of Norwegian winter sweaters has inspired the music of Stina Stjern, as it is to say that she has spent all the time knitting those sweaters listening to alternative rock.