Running contrary to the current fashion for affected 80$ isms, Ida Maria is a genuine rock'n'roll force of nature. She sees songs as colours and excels at drunken singalongs and,
as Doug Johnstone discovers, she even has a choirgirl past to boot
ow do you solve a problem like Maria?
Don’t worry. we’re not talking about any
scary Saturday night television show featuring melty-face Andrew Lloyd Webber. No. this is a much nicer problem. in fact. this Maria isn’t really a problem at all. she’s a star-in- waiting. and if there’s any justice she’ll be a hundred times more famous than the winner of any cheesy reality show.
The Maria in question is Ida (pronounced ‘Ee- da’) Maria Sivertsen. a 23-year-old Norwegian force of nature. She sings. plays guitar and writes songs, but that’s where any similarity to other female singer-songwriters ends. Would you see Norah Jones splitting her head open or cracking her ribs during rowdy gigs? Would you see Katie Melua biting and fighting and drinking and screaming and falling over and pouring her heart out. all in the space of one hour on stage?
Of course you wouldn’t. but these are just some of the antics already attributed to Ida Maria, who is fast developing a reputation for larger-than-life rock’n’roll excess and extraordinary and compelling performance. It’s all a million miles away from Nesna. the tiny town in northern Norway where Maria grew up. Nestled inside the Arctic Circle. it has a population of less than 2000. meaning Maria found herself growing up with typical teenage frustrations.
‘There’s just mountains there and nothing else,’ says Maria with a croaky laugh. ‘Everyone I went to school with is still there. married with kids. I couldn’t stand it. I had to get out.’
The way out was music. Maria’s parents were teachers and musicians. and she grew up listening to an eclectic range of stuff ranging from classical to jazz to punk. While her current sound owes its biggest debt to the last of these genres. there is a breadth of musical vision in what she does that suggests she spent her formative years as a musical sponge.
Her parents tried to get her to play the piano. but Maria rebelled and picked up the guitar instead. She was diagnosed with synesthesia, a condition which means the senses get all jumbled up. There are different kinds of synesthesia. some people get taste sensations when they hear certain words. or see patterns in numbers. In Maria’s case, she sees colours when she hears sounds. particularly music.
Synesthesia is closely related to creativity. with artists as varied as David Hockney, Vladimir Nabokov. Franz Liszt and Kanye West all using their condition positively. For Maria, it’s part of everyday life.
‘I don’t know what life’s like without it. as I’ve always had it,’ she says. 'As I’ve gotten older. I’ve seen that it has definitely been a bonus in
terms of what I do. When I started to play guitar. I made this colour sheet for all the chords. I didn’t know what they were called. but I knew exactly what colours and shades they were. So I made songs with colour palettes which was really cool.’
So when she plays her music. she actually sees
colours? ‘Absolutely,’ she says. ‘lt’s hard to Q
describe but, like, my song ‘Oh My God’ is black and white with a hint of green. while
‘Queen of the World’ is very colourful, it’s a -
bunch of colours all over the place, like a rainbow.’
Those two songs have both been released as singles in the last few months. and highlight Maria’s range. ‘Queen of the World’ is a glorious. drunken singalong anthem with a big stupid grin plastered across its face (‘Whisky please,’ it starts, ‘1 need some whisky please’. It’s an order. not a request).
‘Oh My God’, on the other hand. is a visceral howl of a thing, her band rattling along like The
Stooges in their heyday while Maria unleashes a
cracked and savage vocal somewhere between Janis Joplin and Bjork. ‘Oh my God.’ she screams. ‘do you think I’m in control?’
The answer is clearly no. Maria’s music constantly sounds on the edge of collapse. and is wondrous to behold. Her debut album. fin-tress- Round My Heart. is due in August and is jam packed with what will soon surely be mini- classics.
At least half the album could be hit singles. such is her way with a snappy lyric and catchy melody (and a nice title — ‘I Like You So Much Better When You’re Naked’, for example). And it’s all imbued with the 100% proof spirit of rock’n’roll and a restless energy which is utterly infectious.
‘I never thought about that until other people started mentioning it.’ she laughs. ‘I mean. it’s rock music, it’s supposed to be full of life. isn’t it?’
And yet it might never have been. At l6 Maria moved from Nesna to Bergen. the musical melting pot of Norway. She was still playing
fateful night at an open mic event where she got so irritated with the tedious tune by the bloke from Kings of Convenience on before her. that she lost it on stage.
IDA MARIA
3 WORLD MUSIC
Ida Maria hails from the tiny Norwegian town of Nesna, situated inside the Arctic Circle, a place she regarded as having a profound effect on how her music turned out. We assess just how
' where you’re from can affect your music
Yat-Kha
From Tuva. a Siberian republic in the SOuth of Russia.
The band combine their rockist tendencies with the local skill of throat singing where two tones are sung at
once to devastating effect. They are fiercely proud of
‘I let out all that anger. and somehow my voice '
just broke.’ she says. ‘People came up to me after and were raving about it. so I realised I might be onto something.’
At this point. Maria was also still singing in the
their remote homeland and they are among the world's premier exponents at their art.
‘ The Fence Collective
i From Fife. mainly Anstruther. Expanding beyond the Ship
Bar to become a national.
A often international. cult sensation, this is essentially
. {[4, i just a bunch of folks doing what they’d do whether we noticed or not: play sweet folk music in the their local boozer.
‘5': Slipknot
From Iowa, USA. Almost all of their nine members still live in their hometown Des Moines. fearing losing creative direction if they moved away. That Des Moines is America's main producer of ethanol is not evident in the band's ballistic thrash metal.
The Wurzels
From Somerset
Specialising in their own brand of music called ‘scrumpy and western' and flying the flag for England‘s 80uthwest like few others can or would. The Wurzels‘ back catalogue is littered with glowing tributes to cider. farming. village life. cheddar cheese and of course. combine harvesters and a covers
pllrtt. Ulla -L “ Eta-@525: g: £23 "v :' I}
, , , album of classic rock. Never Mind the Bil/locks. demure acoustic songs at local gigs. until one
Portishead
From Portishead
Hailing from the same end of the country as The Wurzels. this trio named their band after their home town. while making no reference to it and not
seeming even that keen on the place anyway.
Norwegian Youth Choir during the day. a fact ~
which beggars belief when you hear her feral yowl today.
‘That was the most amazing experience.’ she says. ‘1 think I learned more from that than anything else musically. because it was so physically and psychologically demanding.’
I mention that I can’t quite see her as a quiet choirgirl, which makes her laugh heartily.
‘You can’t? Well, I was the one who was always hungover and drunk and made a mess of
From Reykjavik. Iceland
The ethereal. glacial sound of this quartet is inextricably
_‘ linked to their oddly exotic homeland. Such is the band's love affair with the geography
7 of the country that they played a series of outdoor
concerts in an abandoned fishing complex. in the
: midst of the c0untryside and the top of a dam.
things, so I wasn’t really welcome there after a
while. And anyway. after I broke my voice. I couldn’t go back.’
And so the path to rock’n’roll mayhem was set. How do you solve a problem like Maria? You don’t. you just revel in it.
Ida Maria plays King Tut’s, Glasgow, Sun 1 Jun.
Laibach
From Slovenia. via the Neue Slowenische Kunst State The industrial art rock experimentalists spent many years monkeying around with the imagery of old Europe but went one further with side project NSK where they declared their own nation state . . . in their heads.
They went for it properly. though, issuing their own
passports and opening embassies around Europe. 22 May—:3 Jun 2008 THE LIST 19