Lumen Drones

Until recently, the Lumen Drones were a well-kept secret which the Norwegian independent music scene kept to itself. The group took shape when Nils Økland, a folk musician and virtuoso on “the hardanger”, the traditional Norwegian fiddle, attended a festival in Norway and met two members of Low Frequency in Stereo, a band with five albums to its credit and a much-admired lo-fi post-rock sound which had won the band an international audience: the guitarist Per Steinar Lie and the drummer Ørjan Haaland. Encouraged by their future manager, they played together for the first time at a charity concert for the victims of the Haiti earthquake at a local festival in Norway.

Their sound is intensely lyrical and nostalgic, with a DIY approach which borrows elements from the British post-punk of the Eighties and references groups like the Doors, Sonic Youth and Durutti Column as well as the jazz of Dave Pike. The band describe their music as a ‘psychedelic drone’. There are times when their atmospheric soundscapes chime perfectly with the neo-noir aesthetic of films like David Lynch’s “Lost Highway", but the band venture fearlessly along all manner of musical paths—including noise, minimalism and multi-folk—composing eclectic music as they go. “Lumen Drones sounds like the work of a group of musicians just as dedicated to craft and intent as to exploring the noises they can make together, and that makes this LP a beautiful thing”, was “Blurt” magazine’s insightful comment on the project.