Tag: Mayflower Madame Prepared for a Nightmare

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Mayflower Madame Shares Brooding and Anthemic “A Foretold Ecstasy”

Rising Oslo-based post-punk outfit Mayflower Madame — Trond Fagernes (vocals, guitar, bass) and Ola J. Kyrkjeeide (drums) along with Kenneth Eknes (synths), who joins the band in the studio — can trace their origins back to 2011. Their hazy and smoky sound was conceived and inspired by the band’s gritty surroundings: Their first rehearsal space was a desolate, industrial building, which they shared with a local carwash company. After their formation, they quickly recorded a four-track demo, which led to the band being named “Unsigned Band of the Week” on one of Norway’s biggest radio stations.

Shortly after their four-track demo, the band then spent the next few years touring and playing shows across Scandinavia, carefully honing their sound along the way. The band’s full-length debut, 2016’s eight track Observed in a Dream was brooding and icy psych rock rooted in dark romanticism. Based on the success of their full-length debut, the Oslo-based outfit toured across North America and Europe to support the album.

Building upon a growing profile nationally and internationally, the Norwegian band released, the four-song Premonition EP, which they supposed with more touring, including stops across the European festival circuit. Because of the band’s relentless touring they’ve shared stages with an impressive and growing array of artists including Killing Joke, Moon Duo, Night Beats, Psychic Ills, Froth, The Underground Youth, Crocodiles, Cosmonauts and La Femme.

The Norwegian JOVM mainstays’ sophomore album, 2020’s Prepared for a Nightmare saw the band further developing a blend of psych-noir and post with elements of shoegaze and noise rock — and featured “Vultures” “Swallow” and “Sacred Core,” tracks that to my ears, channeled The Black Angels and Chain of Flowers.

Since the release of Prepared for a Nightmare, the Oslo-based JOVM mainstays have been busy: They spent 2022 touring across the UK and Europe. And last year, they released Prepared for a Nightmare Deluxe, which featured five previously unreleased tracks from the album’s recording sessions while working on new material.

Mayflower Madame’s highly-anticipated third album is slated for release later this year digitally through Norwegian label Night Cult Records, on CD through French label Icy Cold Records and on vinyl through French label Only Lovers Records and British label Up In Her Room. The album was mixed by renowned Italian engineer Maurizio Baggio, who has worked with the likes of The Soft Moon, Boy Harsher and JOVM mainstays The Vacant Lots.

The forthcoming album’s first single “A Foretold Ecstasy” sees the band refining their sound: The song is built around a forceful, motorik-like pulse, atmospheric synths, reverb-drenched shimmering guitar stabs and anthemic hooks and choruses serving as post-punk-inspired soundscape for Trond Fagernes’ yearning and uneasy delivery. The result is a song that simultaneously feels dark, brooding and somehow euphoric.

The band’s Fagernes explains that the song is about “constantly chasing ome elation or intoxicating sensation to relieve one’s inner turmoil, while still being aware that it’s just a passing state followed by an inevitable downfall.”

The accompanying video features a trippy array of images that pulse and undulate with the song’s relentless motorik-like groove.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: JOVM Mainstays Mayflower Madame Release a Gorgeous and Trippy Visual for Menacing “Sacred Core”

Mayflower Madame — Trond Fagernes (vocals, guitar, bass), Havard Haga (guitar) and Ola J. Kyrkjeeide (drums) — is a rising Oslo Norway-based psych rock/post-punk act that can trace its origins back to 2011. The band’s hazy and smoky sound was conceived in and inspired by the band’s gritty surroundings: their first rehearsal space was a desolate, industrial building, which they shared with a local carwash company. After their formation, they quickly recorded a four-track demo. which led to the band being named “Unsigned Band of the Week” on one of Norway’s biggest radio stations. 

Shortly after their four-track demo, the band then spent the next few years touring and playing shows across Scandinavia, carefully honing their sound along the way. The band’s full-length debut, 2016’s eight track Observed in a Dream was brooding and icy psych rock with a dark romanticism. Based on the success of their full-length debut, the Oslo-based psych rock band toured across North America and Europe to support the album. The band followed Observed in a Dream with 2018’s Premonition EP,  four songs of apocalyptic love songs. 

Building upon a growing profile. Mayflower Madame supported Premonition EP with more touring, including the European festival circuit with stops in France, Germany, the UK and Eastern Europe. And as a result of the band’s touring schedule, they’ve shared stages with an impressive and growing list of artists including Killing Joke, Moon Duo, Night Beats, Psychic Ills, Froth, The Underground Youth, Crocodiles, Cosmonauts and La Femme. 

Released earlier this year through a collaboration between French label Only Lovers Records, Portland‘s Little Cloud Records and Parisian label Icy Cold Records, Prepared for a Nightmare, the Norwegian psych rock JOVM mainstays’ latest album finds them further developing their unique blend of psych-noir and post punk with elements of shoegaze and noise rock. So far I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles — the shoegazer yet menacing “Vultures” and “Swallow” — and while both tracks may bring The Black Angels, My Gold Mask, and Chain of Flowers to mind, they also evoke the dread and despair of our horrible sociopolitical moment. 

“Sacred Core,” Prepared for a Nightmare’s third and latest single continues a run of brooding and menacing psych rock, centered around swirling, shimmering and hypnotic guitars and a propulsive and muscular beat. Unlike its immediate predecessors, which were subtly shoegazer-leaning, “Sacred Core” is even more menacing, recalling The Black Angels’ Directions to See a Ghost while still being atmospheric. “‘Sacred Core’ is a song about getting lost, drifting away and trying to find the way back to your safe haven — guided by swirling, hypnotic guitars and an insistent heavy beat,” the band’s Trond Fagernes says in press notes. 

Continuing their ongoing collaboration with director Astrid Serck, the recently released video for “Sacred Core,” is centered around motion and stillness — and as a result, there’s gorgeous black and white footage of beaches and churches, movement in and around an old house, blinding sunbeams and footage of the band playing shows in Oslo and San Diego. “To me, the song is like an open landscape – it’s grounded, but at the same time moving. I wanted to capture that feeling visually with footage from windmill fields and beaches, where there’s constant movement — like a rhythm, as opposed to the solid ground. A contrast between motion and stillness. Something to hold on to as well as something loose and vibrating,” Astrid Serck says in press notes. 

“The core is what you hold on to. The motion is what you can let go. The sunbeams are blinding you, like a sacred light. The ceiling of a church is another symbol for sanctity. The moon is dancing, in disturbing ways, on the screen. In the video there is also an abandoned house, left with the door open. It´s a metaphor for the feeling of something that is lost, you can go back there, but only the memories are left. In addition there’s live footage of the band filmed from shows in Oslo and San Diego.”