Oslo Twins
Words and Photographs by Willow Shields
Oslo Twins are a new band on the horizon, hailing from Bristol with the perfect new sound for the London scene to feast its ears upon. Gigging extensively at iconic venues like the windmill and the fiddlers elbow, I caught the five piece after their gig at The Old Blue Last in Shoreditch the day after their debut single, The Edge, had dropped.
The Edge is an Earth shattering debut with sounds harkening back to the 80s. In times of Depeche Mode and trance pop at its peak, Oslo twins are a perfect time capsule to the time that I'm sure many of us wish we could have been born in. The Edge proves that. Sitting outside the back of the venue on some questionably stained stone steps.I ask the band, who are you and what do you do? Frontwoman Claudia responds, “we're Oslo Twins, we're a dream-pop trip-hop... We're a band. We just released our first single, yesterday. I asked how it was received and guitarist and synth player, Eric responds, “I think it went okay, it's been better than expected. It's been a long time coming, we've been sitting on it for ages.”
Oslo twins are a band I can't quite figure out. I first thought that they were actually twins, I'm still not sure if they aren't. So, trying to get a grasp on their reality I asked where they were all from. Eric slyly avoided the question, stating, “We all met in Bristol,” Claudia tried to unsuccessfully clear up the situation saying, “half of us from London,” and Luke added on “Will and I are from the South Coast.” With the band looking sweaty and frankly haggard after their headline set. I tried to brighten the mood by asking one of my favourite ever questions: “What's your favourite supermarket?” The band all responded with different answers, ranging from Aldi to Waitrose Eric points out that Lidl has been tainted for him “from past relationships,” then the conversation dwindles into where it would be easiest to steal from, they came to the conclusion of Sainsbury’s, feel free to test their theory.
Since we were in the capital, I asked the band where their favourite place in London is. They all answer with smirks. Eric laughed “Leicester Square or Trafalgar Square. Or Big Ben.” Luke chuckled, “the tube.” And Claudia adds “I've heard the eye is pretty cool.” Luke desperately trying to bring the conversation back to it’s roots, states that “I’ve heard the Windmills sick.” As I mentioned earlier, I still can't work out what Oslo Twins are about. And I have a funny feeling they like to keep it that way. I posed “Why are you guys called Oslo Twins?” Luke jokingly said “because we were all born in Oslo.” Eric piled on, “Yeah, we were born in Norway.” Luke started up again, “As you can see they're both, they are both very Scandinavian and they're obviously twins.”- Are they though? I still have absolutely no idea! - Eric says, “No, but there is a story, Claudia?" Hearing her name, Claudia comes back to reality and says, “my mum had a dream that we were really successful and called Oslo twins. And we thought, that sounds cool, so we did that.” Eric, then rejoining the joke, says, “We're just very subconscious people we’re very in tune with the universe.” Claudia added, “we're actually all telepathic and this is the first time we've ever spoken in front of each other.” Eric then draws the conversation to a close by saying, “we've actually never met before.”
So Oslo Twins, the band who aren't actually twins, (or are they?) Who ironically claim to have the power of telekinesis, though I wouldn't put it past them. That make insane music, sign me up.