AIMING FOR ENRIKE
Norwegian ambient electro duo view dystopia through a more playful lens.
THE SELF-INDULGENCE OF many so-called lockdown albums has been all too much to bear, though thankfully Aiming For Enrike are here to show us how it should be done. The eccentric Norwegian duo have taken the liminality and the mundanity of that difficult time period and turned it into something pristine, artistic and futuristic. Their fifth studio album Empty Airports is a nod to Brian Eno, their twist on 1978’s utilitarian Ambient 1: Music For Airports in keeping with our dystopian times.
“I think the title has many aspects to it that describe the times we were in,” says guitarist Simen Følstad Nilsen. “The airports were empty. And then the title track itself sounds like it could be performed in an empty airport with a big reverb sound. And also, empty airports might be the future. Who knows? People might stop flying altogether. So there’s a postapocalyptic feel to it also. It’s hard to know what the future will hold.”
Airports are what the French anthropologist Marc Augé called “non-places”– transitory hubs which humans pass through with little emotional investment. “I guess it has many meanings and describes the sound really well,” adds Nilsen. “That is usually what we go for first when trying to name tracks. We want to describe the sound and the feel of the track.”
Aiming For Enrike’s off-beat nomenclature never disappoints: their last album, a more angular beast called Music For Working Out, features the playful song titles Don’t Hassle The Hoff, Spice Girls and Undead
Horse Of Thunder And Metal. Invariably, there’s been a wryness and a levity to what they do. Nilsen and drummer Tobias Ørnes Andersen first met at music college in 2009, and their early inspirations were Hella and Lightning Bolt, groups who are capable of making an awesome noise with just two people. Andersen was playing with art-rockers Leprous at the time. He eventually left to concentrate on Aiming For Enrike, though the parting was on the best of terms.
“They invited me back to play for the 20th anniversary tour,” says Andersen, who returned not only to drumming duties in January 2022 but was also able to take Aiming For Enrike along as support act.“We had a double drum setup so it was very convenient to bring Simen on the tour bus and then have Aiming as the opener.”
Since their first album Mao Miro in 2012, the band have become more progressive with each release, but the core of what they do remains the same. Empty Airports has an electronic feel thanks to the many effects Nilsen uses to give the guitar a more modular synth-like sound, at least when he’s not mimicking the gamelan theatrics of King Crimson’s Discipline on the 11-minute epic Feel No Threat/Absent Lovers (he’s an avowed Crimson nut).
“With this band, there’s nothing pre-recorded,” Nilsen says.“Everything happens and the records are reproducible with no cheating or whatever you want to call it. So we’re never really that far away from fucking up the whole song. A simple little mistake can make it sound really bad, so if we do a good show, we’ve covered all our mistakes pretty well.”