Choices of the Grasshopper November 2024

Performed by: Opera
Lyrics by: Liudmila Garmashova, Craig Ronan 
Music by: Liudmila Garmashova, Craig Ronan, Eren Guler
Produced by: William Evans
Cover art by: Aedan Clark

Lyrics:
You shoot in the air but forget one thing
The wind will take it all away, all away
The storm never starts with heavy rain but then
The wind will take it all away, all away

Throw it in the trash and then
Start over and forget
Start with a small drop and then
Rain down and wash away

You shoot in the air but forget one thing
You shoot in the air but forget one thing
You shoot in the air but forget one thing
You shoot in the air but forget one thing

All my life I never knew
If the stories told were true
I had to see now for myself
Find out what I was about
Without you, without you
What would I do
Without you, without you
What would i do

Throw it in the trash and then
Start over and forget
Start with a small drop and then
Rain down and wash away

You shoot in the air but forget one thing
You shoot in the air but forget one thing
You shoot in the air but forget one thing
You shoot in the air but forget one thing

You shoot in the air
You shoot in the air but forget one thing

Forget - EP

Forget

Opera - Forget

What Have You Done To Me?

Love In Mind

Heatwave

Ameripop!

Love Won’t Tear Me Away

Inside The Capital

The Norwegian super-group with members from Making Marks, The Little Hands of Asphalt, Mildfire, Flight Mode and Elva return with a third album of original Christmas songs. 

Get into that alternative, Nordic Christmas spirit!

Christmas III at its heart is an alt-Christmas album: the songs are firmly rooted in December’s festivities, albeit not usually relying on the season’s traditional reference points. The songs hone in on the more ambivalent sides of Christmas - family, customs and the passing of time - with a keen eye towards the holidays’ most obvious function in countries close to the Artic circle: getting through the cold and dark times to celebrate the winter solstice and the turning of the sun. 

Drawing from Sufjan Stevens’ epic indie Christmas compendium and Phil Spector’s wall of sound classic A Christmas Gift From You, Christmas III is built on shimmering guitars, snow filled piano lines, gentle strings, springy vocals and dynamic drums - all steadily conducted by Sunturns’ own Sjur Lyseid (Flight Mode, The Little Hands of Asphalt) in the producer’s seat at his Globus studio in Oslo.

With three songwriters (Ola Innset, Einar Stray and Sjur Lyseid) contributing to Christmas III, there’s an ever shifting sense of reflections. Parenthood and the struggles of the dark Norwegian winter is behind Ola’s track First Winter. “Some times I feel bad about bringing children into such a difficult world. Not so much with respect to daylight and the seasons, they’re just going to have to learn how to live with it, but with many other things – like war, poverty, climate change and even just death.” 
Back In Town might have been inspired by a discussion over whether Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town” is a Christmas song or not, but it’s written about his youngest daughter Klara, to his elder daughter, about taking holidays with your family in a town you once lived.

Einar pulls in Phoenix and Mew by the way of Jesus and Mary Chain on Crash Course Christmas, resulting in a seasick wave of a pop tune. “It’s a song about the guilt of not prioritizing your relationships. It’s been a year of rainchecks and Christmas finally gives you some time to reflect. You’ve experienced so much and changed so much as a person that you almost forget your origins. Coming home for Christmas can then be a ritiual of finding your way back to what you left behind."
Drawing on the knitwear from the film Love, Actually, Turtle Neck, taps into the Backstreet Boys by way of Mac Demarco, with a sneaky reference to the legendary Norwegian Christmas hit En Stjerne Skinner I Natt.

Album closer This Christmas / Next Christmas leans in on the hook for the Norwegian Christmas TV show Jul i Blåfjell, a multi-generational seasonal staple (essentially a daily children’s advent calendar kids show). “The song is about your parents ageing and needing your help – possibly really far away - while at the same time having your own children to take care of”.

If previous albums Christmas I (2011) and II (2015) are somewhat different from each other, then Christmas III represents a fusion of the two. Sunturns’ debut is full of youthful exuberance and was recorded with plentiful overdubs in Oslo, while 2015’s follow up is more pensive and somewhat darker, and was recorded live during one week in the Swedish forests. Einar elaborates: “I love making records like this: short, effective sessions with limited time and therefore no bland ‘perfection’. There’s a nerve to knowing you can collectively bring it all together without the luxury of time”. Christmas III represents a return to the lighter tone, on at least some of the songs, but with the wisdom of age that emerged on the second. You can’t just return to your twenties, however much you might want to!


Sunturns - Crash Course Christmas

Fika Recordings is a diy indie[pop] label run from London.
