Rigla + Wold Wiggen

The best thing about musicians is their ability to surprise us – first with something that makes us laugh, then with something that hits a little deeper. It might be a line we recognise ourselves in, a voice we can’t shake, or a song that suddenly takes a completely unexpected turn.

When Rigla and Wold Wiggen share the bill at Belleville, there’s plenty to look forward to for those of us who enjoy exactly that. Both have a taste for the offbeat and for lyrics that deserve a little extra attention. But each takes their own route.

Rigla takes its name from the Sunnmøre dialect word “riglafengje”, meaning unsteady or wobbly. It suits their music rather well. Here, folk music, jazz and singer-songwriter pop weave together in arrangements that make room for both fragility and power.

The six musicians come from different parts of Norway and have found a shared voice through playing together and improvising. Two vocalists, fiddle, saxophone, synth, cello, double bass and drums give them plenty to work with. And they make full use of it, with a curiosity that has taken them to stages including Øyafestivalen and ByLarm, and earned them the title of Månedens Urørt on NRK P3 – the station’s monthly spotlight on emerging artists.

On their debut album, Sendebud fra sandkassa, they draw on late nights out, irritating people, hangxiety and love in some of its more curious forms. The little things and the big things that fill a life become ten songs, each with a character of its own. Some invite us to dance. Others give us something to feel.

Then there’s Wold Wiggen. A duo who say their music can more or less be described as folk song. That rather modest description contains a world all their own.

Joddski has compared them to Knutsen og Ludvigsen falling asleep at an afterparty in Blindern in the 1970s and waking up in Sofienberg Park forty years later, with a terrible hangover. It’s an image that makes us want to listen more closely.

With Wrangforestillinger and Renkespill, Wold Wiggen have shown their flair for lyrics and for lovely, odd and catchy folk music. They’ve received favourable reviews in publications including Dag og Tid and Dagens Næringsliv, and taken their songs to venues such as Parkteateret and Cosmopolite, and festivals including Trænafestivalen and Vinjerock. They’re now working on their third album.

This evening, we get to hear both. Six musicians and a duo, with their own stories to tell and their own ways of bringing words and music together.

We hope you’ll join us. Listen to the lyrics, follow the music wherever it takes us, and perhaps find something you recognise along the way.