Lindstrøm
& Christabelle
Real
Life Is No Cool
(Smalltown Supersound)
After the release of Lindstrøm’s
critically acclaimed solo album Where You Go I Go Too, in
2008 and 2009`s collaborative album with Prins Thomas, II,
Norway’s maestro of disco returns once again. This time
he teams up with sultry vocalist Christabelle, to bring us
Real Life Is No Cool, an edgy pop album of structured
chaos and hypnotic beats.
Hans-Peter Lindstrøm actually began work
on Real Life Is No Cool before Where You Go I Go
Too, it just so happened WYGIGT was finished first. It was
his work on this new album, containing 10 short pop songs
with vocals, which became the impetus behind creating the
epic and colossal masterpiece, WYGIGT (with only 3 long tracks
and a opening track clocking in at 28 minutes). Essentially,
WYGIGT was a kind of reaction to his work on Real Life
Is No Cool. When WYGIGT began making waves around the
world, Lindstrøm went back into his studio to complete
Real Life Is No Cool.
Christabelle (also known as Solale to Lindstrøm
followers) has been working on and off with Lindstrøm
since 2001. Their relationship began when she immediately
fell in love with his sound after hearing her brother Dennis
(a friend of Lindstrøm) play some of his tracks at
home. Upon listening, she proceeded to lay down vocals on
some of his tracks, and her brother then delivered them to
Lindstrøm. His first impression was, “Wow! This
sounds totally fresh, wild and quirky”. A meeting was
set up and the two found a common ground. ”We found
out that we shared many of the same musical references, such
as Motown, Grace Jones, 80s soul, Vanity 6, etc.” says
Lindstrøm. “We even tried to make a cover of
Zapp`s ‘Computer Love’. This meeting led to a
collaboration resulting in two 12”s -- 2003’s
“Music In My Mind” and 2005’s “Let’s
Practice” (then under the name Lindstrøm and
Solale). They never planned on making an album together, but
the collaboration slowly evolved into a collection of songs
that ended up becoming Real Life Is No Cool. (The
title is a line taken from the album track ‘Keep It
Up’ -- a track about violent relationships.)
Christabelle, whose full name is Christabelle
Silje Isabelle Birgitta Sandoo, was born in 1981 to a Norwegian
mother and a father from Mauritius (an island in the Indian
ocean) in Oslo, Norway. Her father is a musician and music
teacher, her mother a vocalist, and her brother a drummer.
“All my life I have been surrounded by music, musicians,
and instruments, so it was kind of obvious that I would also
make music”. She started working with some of the best
producers in Norway, but got off to on the wrong foot as she
soon rebelled against their slick sound and attitude. As she
said, “There was simply no room for going crazy and
having fun, and I didn’t want to sell my nomad soul”.
One of the things that attracted Lindstrøm was this
rebellion against being “produced”. He would just
let Christabelle do what she was inspired to do – she
found room for improvisation and was able to let herself loose
working with him. She created most of the lyrics on the spot,
while the two were jamming, and recorded half of the tracks’
vocals at home and on her own, using a simple Shure SM55 “elvis”-mic,
which gave her vocals an intimate and raw character. Lindstrøm
would then edit and produce the jams later. Christabelle was
not into the house music that Lindstrøm was into at
the time, which forced him to think differently. The result
was a more loose and improvised sound than what Lindstrøm
had done before.
Lindstrøm calls their collaboration “structured
chaos”, him being the structure and Christabelle bringing
the chaos. This chaos is also very much a part of Christabelle`s
personal life. She has always been a nomad -- impulsive and
restless, she’s a self-described “on-the-road
girl”. She moved to London when she was 16, and, since
then, has lived in Paris, Marseille, Mauritius, and Stockholm.
She now lives in Oslo. She is, in many ways, the total opposite
of Lindstrøm, who lives a quiet family life and makes
disco nine to five, Monday to Friday, traveling to play one
gig a month so that he can have time with his family.
Real Life Is No Cool is a meeting of
these two different personalities.
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