Vika Vika by Norwegian Arms - A song written and composed in an emotional fury for a girlfriend the night before valentines day. think bouncy, folky, bright, frantic, excited, nervous, poppy. Instrumentation is Mandolin, five gallon bucket, minor use of synthesizer, voice. Philadelphia, PA

Norwegian Arms - VIKA VIKA

Find Truth Demo

Norwegian Arms presents: 
Trimmings of Hides 
a slight foray into the mind/body/soul of Keith Birthday and Dr. Awkward at American Diamond 

1. Run! Ran! Run! Rah! 
'Every day your life is the same until it is completely different' 

2.She Lives in a Secret Town 
'There is a reactor over there but I cannot touch it' 

3.Tramplebeasts 
'I went and moved until I was tired and then I got lost in the woods'
credits
released 17 March 2011 
one and two recorded by José Diaz with overdubs @OX by Keith Birthday 
three recorded by Keith Birthday and Dr. Awkward 
mastered by Samuel Nuttle @OX and @Home 

Run! Ran! Run! Rah!

Girard Freeloader is out now - http://norwegianarms.bandcamp.com

The world is constantly shifting, of course on a molecular level, but also some sort of poetic one, and for my tiny existence as a well. As we change locations, jobs, friends, and schools, things change about us. We get a moment to see ourselves in a vacuum, unaffected by a current location, its social constructs, and at a critical moment of being able to determine your self, thoughts, and worldview once more. It's the soft tissue that later forms solid bones, it's what fuels my Wanderlust.

I could break away from every choice I've ever made. 
Just my thoughts and my limbs and my beats and you I know. 
Shove the whole view aside, and turn towards the eternal eye (I?) 
I've come a long way but, it's everything that I know. 

But it could be better, I'm gonna make you feel better. 
Take to ideas and push them together, facing me you will feel better. 
It's everything that I know 

Sneak off and live with me, somewhere in the Pyrenees, 
take our time on the way, ain't we in? (I know). 
Together we'll ground our feet, the air perfumed, the scent of trees, 
I've come a long way, but it's everything that I know! 

It's a simple way from, all the thistle and the smog - 
take your time to figure, in a conscious manner, make a map of your mind.

Brendan M - Mandolin, Vocals, Additional Keys, Programming, Additional Percussion, Additional Drums, Bass Guitar 
Andy Molholt - Keyboards, Wizardry, Whale Song, Evergreen Friendship, Additional Vocals on East Hollywood 
Eric Slick - Drums, Palptable Groove, Hand Claps, Manifestation of ideas, Percussion 
Matt Scarano - Additional Drums on East Hollywood 
John Thayer - Additional Percussion on How We Move 
Michael Trillions - Additional Programming, Vibe Guru 
Nicholas Wilbur - Reamping drums in an empty church from across the country 

Produced by Norwegian Arms and José Díaz Rohena 
Engineered by José Díaz Rohena 
Additional Engineering by Zach Goldstein, John Thayer, Judah Dadone, Brendan M 
Mixed by José Díaz Rohena 

Tracked to tape at the Unknown, Anacortes Washington, Sept 2014 
Additional Tracking at 40 Frost and 62 Saint Nicholas in Brooklyn, New York 2015 
Additional Tracking at Kawari Sound Studios in Wyncote, Pennsylvania 2015 
Additional Tracking at 1876 Bleecker in Ridgewood, Queens 2016

How We Move

Resource Sucker

Find Truth

Make The Rules

East Hollywood

New Sky

West Queen West

Girard Freeloader

Visions

Tramplebeasts

EZ a LVR Goes West (Be Fruitful, Wear Less Clothing)

The term ‘Norwegian Arms’, according to front-person and sole founding member Keith Birthday, describes the act of “grabbing slivers of fleeting moments across the globe, but in a self deprecating way.” Throughout the band’s existence, Birthday has done just that. The band’s debut record Wolf Like a Stray Dog captured a year of frozen solitude spent in the Siberian Taiga. Snapshots of intimate personal experiences mixed with stories of secret cities and musings on language and culture. Where Wolf focused on a specific feeling attached to a singular place, Norwegian Arms’ new album Girard Freeloader (out 1/20 on Mutual Crush) applies this concept to the entire world, with songs taking inspiration from the jungles of Peru, the forests of Washington state, and Keith Birthday’s native Philadelphia.


            Keith (also known in more professional circles as Brendan M) uses these places as jumping off points to ruminate about the complications of living in this modern world through the eyes of a “Freeloader”, the listless narrator who is searching simultaneously for a cup of coffee and his own deepest feelings. “West Queens Street West” turns a weekend trip to Toronto into thoughts about traveling as a break from the monotony of everyday Internet-centric life.  “East Hollywood” finds Birthday considering how distance and growth changes relationships over time while visiting friends in California. But the place that seemingly influences Girard Freeloader the most is the city of Philadelphia, where Keith found himself suddenly still after his long Russian sojourn, and where the record takes its name.  


Whether he’s talking about modern American colonialism as a traveling ESL teacher through an the lens of sucking up the last limited natural resources from a dying planet on “Resource Sucker”, feeling himself atrophy on “Visons of my Father,” or fantasizing about finding a better life in the Pyrenees mountains on “How We Move”, the feeling of returning to a familiar place after a long and affecting journey looms large over Girard Freeloader.

            The record was chiefly recorded by José Díaz Rohena at The Unknown, Phil Elverum’s studio in Anacortes, Washington and completed in Philadelphia and Birthday’s new home of New York. The music communicates a growth from the last album as well, a more cinematic and extended scope, with more room for contemplation than the previous record’s two minute punk-influenced blasts. Girard Freeloader feels like D’Angelo-influenced digital soul with the synthesizer drive of The Silver Apples and the groovy poly-rhythms of Tuareg guitarists, all culled from Birthday’s mind and the childhood mandolin on which he writes songs with a signature unorthodox finger-driven playing style. 

            While Birthday was recording, he took a break to visit Bowman’s Bay, a secluded beach on the outskirts of Anacortes. There he found inspiration for the lyrics for “Make The Rules”, the closing track to the album: “I can almost taste it, feet behind in the nectar line. Is it the only thing that binds? String of eternity? And isn’t it amazing, the breadth of the sea, the lines in the leaves? Just over the bay I can see it.”  Girard Freeloader is an album about contemplation and striving for self-betterment in the terrifying world in which we live. Maybe, if we all connect deeper with the places we hold dear, we can attain it. As Birthday expresses, “I’ve come a long way, but it’s everything that I know.”

Norwegian Arms

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