
Kickstart my heart when 
you shine it in my eyes.
Can't lie, it's a sweet life!

Home: https://www.facebook.com/theswitchoslo
Video: http://tinyurl.com/qgha2ad

The Switch, an Oslo sextet (or rather a quintet with an affixed lyricist), had been writing, recording and performing music in the impossible-to-market genre "harmony- and solo-heavy 70's inspired pop/rock, I guess?" for almost five years when one of the few Norwegian music reviewers people sort of care about named their debut album "Big If" (Arch Records, 2014) "the hidden gem of the year" in his year-end roundup. This pleased The Switch to no end. They bought physical copies of the newspaper and showed it to people. They also agreed, for the most part, although this they kept to themselves. Atheists all - they were still protestants.

Now let's skip back to what is about to happen:

Late in the summer of 2013, months after having wrapped up the recording of "Big If", The Switch recorded a demo of an old tune they had written two years previously. The recording was mostly meant as a way to keep their studio-muscles fit, but they immediately found, much their delight and wonderment, that the old prog ditty they thought they were recording was actually a part of an entire album they had written without realizing it: A vast underground structure connecting disparate parts of their shelved songwriting into a whole. Songs they thought were finished turned out to be missing parts of other songs entirely, or just woefully incomplete. What they unearthed that fall (and recorded that winter) didn't sound a whole lot like their first album; the day had turned to dusk and the earth and leather gave way to asphalt and sharp edges, electric lights and echoes. A spiral chronicle of how simply wanting to better one's place in life opens up a chasm of cyclical violence of the heart, stretched to the horizon, begging you to fall into it. Hence the title.

And thus The Switch would like to present, for your consideration, their sophomore album "B for The Beast". Gem or not, they hope it doesn't stay hidden.

B for the Beast
Produced by Thomas Sagbråten and Filip Roshauw
Recorded in Oslo 2013-2014 by Thomas Sagbråten
Mixed by Christian Engfelt (1-3 og 5-7), Morten Øby (4) and Thomas Sagbråten (8)
Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound

Written by Sagbråten/Vollset (1-4), Sagbråten/Roshauw/Vollset (5-8).

The Switch are:
Thomas Sagbråten (vocals, rythm guitars, misc)
Filip Roshauw (lead guitars, vocals, misc)
Arthur Kay Piene (keyboards)
Espen Kregnes (bass)
Ingrid Aarvik Berge (drums, vocals)
Peter Vollset (lyrics)

Guest musicians: Tore Flatjord (percussion), Erlend Magnus Barratt-Due Solum (clarinet), Christian Bjølseth (banjo), Mira Berggrav Refsum (vocals), Frank Michaelsen (vocals), Bjørnar E. Brandseth (pedal steel guitar), Ole Øvstedal (percussion), Øystein Hvamen Rasmussen (trumpet)


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