When thinking about European discovery and independent music scene, SPOT Festival is an excellent place to find fresh sounds. The festival annually hosts thousands of guests and more than two hundred bands. The Danish band Rigmor has been our absolute favorite band of this year’s festival. As Nordik Simit, we were lucky enough to chat with the band before their show. However, we would first like to describe our concert experience and talk about Rigmor’s music.
Rigmor, consisting of Sarah Wichmann, Oliver Stewart, Victor Sousa, and Lasse Lykke, is a typical indie rock band. As far as I remember, I had been following Rigmor since their first singles, but I had never listened to their full album until I moved to Denmark in 2021. Since discovering the band, they became my favorite Danish band after Efterklang and Sleep Party People. What makes the band quite unique is that they blend literature and music in such a way that you feel the beauty of the lyrics whether you speak Danish or not. Vocalist Sarah Wichmann’s entire style and presence somehow convey this beauty. It is impossible not to notice. I have had these impressions about Rigmor since 2021. Indeed, their concert on May 4 at 9:00 PM justified all my thoughts and imaginations about the band. I want to emphasize that 9:00 PM on Saturday is the prime time of the festival. Only the star names of the festival perform at this time. Rigmor met the audience on the biggest and most crowded stage of the festival at that time.
I was in awe of their second full album “Vælter vi mørket”, which they released on March 1. There is absolutely no bad or off sound in the album. I was sure the concert would be incredible. Rigmor’s first two singles “Træ” and “Vægtløs” are still among the band’s strongest songs. In my opinion, there are very few bands that have created such iconic songs right from their first two singles, at least in the Scandinavian music scene.
After these notes, let’s get back to the concert. I literally had goosebumps throughout whole concert. The presence of the band, and especially vocalist Sarah, was so strong on stage that it was impossible for me not to surrender myself and my emotions to the music. The last time I had goosebumps at a concert, which was actually the first and last time until the Rigmor concert, was at the Slowdive concert I attended in 2015. In summary, the concert was a huge experience for me. It was an incredible experience where I felt the power of music and songwriting down to my bones.
– Hi Rigmor! How is it going? How has 2024 for you thus far?
It’s good! We have released our new album and toured Denmark, Sweden and Greenland – all the places we have been people have been so kind and lovely. We couldn’t ask for more.
– How did the band name Rigmor originate? Interestingly, Rigmor happens to be one of my favorite Danish female names, haha!
It’s totally random, it was just a girl that we met at a bar and we thought the name was a cool band name, haha. So not much symbolism there, unfortunately.
– Your debut single was released in 2019. Can you share how the band came together and started its journey? Despite taking three years to release the debut album, Rigmor has well-established its musical universe through the singles, I believe. How was this period of development for the band?
We began playing in March 2018 and for a while we just played small concerts and wrote new songs. It was just for fun and not something we thought would go on to be our actual living. It wasn’t until we released the first single that we realised maybe there could be a lot of exciting adventures ahead – and it’s just been a crazy ride ever since. Of course, there has been slow periods, but mostly we are just extremely grateful for all we have experienced so far.
– I am fascinated by the backstory of bands, especially when there is limited information available online. Rigmor draws inspiration from Danish poet Michael Strunge. How has Strunge influenced Rigmor’s creative direction and while crafting the songwriting?
Strunge’s poetry is actually what started our journey; the first few songs are written from texts by him. It was just an experiment, but it was part of what defined us in the beginning, and we believe it has definitely snuck into our sound as well.
– Given our readers’ interest in Scandinavian literature, particularly in the frequency of Turkish translations of the Nordic book titles, could you delve into Rigmor’s with Michael Strunge? Does punk poetry resonate with your musical style and which ways?
It’s not so much anymore, but at first we all found a great deal of meaning in the whole punk poetry scene, especially Strunge’s ups and downs, which we translated to explosive and energetic songs. We still love playing those songs, but we need to be able to dive in to other moods as well with our music. And that’s sort of been the process for us the past few years.
– What was the process like leading up to the “Vælter vi mørket album”? While looking at the song titles, I sense a juxtaposition of hope and darkness. Could you share some insights into how you brought these songs together?
We wrote them all together during two stays in summerhouses in Denmark: much more focused than our previous writing. We wrote the songs based off our life situations at the time and the conversations we had with each other. A lot of great things have happened to us personally, but there have also been some dark times. That’s probably what created the duality in the album.
– Why did you choose to include two songs related to the sun, “Plasticsolen” and “Sol”? While I understand the connection to Michael Strunge with “Plasticsolen,” I am curious if there’s a specific story or reference behind these tracks.
Sol is actually named after Victor, the bassist’s, son. 🙂 The sun is also just such a universal reference; life-giving and warm. Sometimes ruthless if we don’t treat our planet right.
– Why is it significant for you to sing in Danish?
It definitely means a lot to us to sing in our mother tongue! It creeps much more under our skin and it is easier to be more nuanced in our writing.
– What is Rigmor looking forward to in the next chapter?
This summer is full of festivals, and then we have a fall tour coming up! And we just started writing our next album, which is very exciting. 🙂
