Love’s a riot.
A chat with Nordland.
Mario Scherrer and Priska Weber aka Nordland. Zurich, circa 1986.
For some people, it takes their whole lives searching for something. Whether far or close, it often comes unexpected, but these events do happen for a reason and usually have a pursue. Some people search for meaning whilst others for their significant other. Paths can suddenly become clear and true. For a band like Nordland, they found themselves in the streets of an eighties Zurich protest. Even if given immortality to think about places where you could find your purpose, the time would be wasted if you were to have guessed that romance and riots would ever go together. Amid the chaos of that day, when all you could hear was the shouts of protestors, the smell of the violence in the air, anger in the eyes and hope spread on lips, one can look back forty years later, where the events that followed all now seem like a distant dream, but that remained reality into changing the lives of this pair forever.
Promo pictures by Christian Känzig. Circa 1988,
The genesis of Nordland partly came from this scenario. Mario Scherrer and Priska Weber found something in each other that led them being together to this day. Spanning a career of over 10 years, this album features Nordland's early works that were composed a couple of years before and prior of Squares and Crossings (DDP004). An intriguing approach to New Wave music, incorporating elements of pop and new age whilst not sacrificing the duo's musical influences, the music of Nordland is at the time melancholic and fresh, which they like to compare to the bleakness and vastness of fairy tale like forests. Despite having a few lineup changes, Nordland's breakthrough gig was as a pair, opening for the Irratics and The Young Gods in Fri-Son (Fribourg, CH) on the 9th of May, 1987.
Sourced from the original tapes provided by the SRF3 (then called DRS3); the national Radio for the German and Romansh territories of Switzerland. This never before released live set has been enhanced and remastered by yours truly in lip biting stereo and will not only include their breakthrough gig from Fri-Son but also the reissue of their debut self-titled EP.
In the early eighties whilst both being students, Mario studying music history and Priska psychology in Zurich, the two saw something in each other and clicked rapidly. Mario had some experience in songwriting whilst being heavily inspired by the combination of classical and pop music. Priska on the other hand, is a self taught multi-instrumentalist. It became quickly apparent that a collaboration to create was inbound, as both were fascinated by punk and also understood music as a rebellion against the existing order. It was only after hours of experimentation, improvisation and rehearsals and several lineup changes that Priska and Mario started to perform live, at first amongst friends in various Zurich basements.
Their debut self-titled EP, recorded at the ARTAG studio in Zurich, was rather well received. Now forming a trio with their friend Anna Kellenberger on bass, synths and vocals, the release was supported by a string of concerts, where their first public show was in support of Dutch coldwave band Clan of Xymox at the Rote Fabrik in Zurich. Nordland’s career grew steadily, especially after being taken under management of Marlene Marder from the well known punk band KLEENEX/Lilliput. Admired and respected locally, Zuri-Trip described Nordland’s music as “A mix of New Order minimalism and early Pink Floyd dreamscapes . Music that brings cold and warmth to mind, bringing extremes together.” After their first Swiss tour the same year, Anna left the band due to different ambitions. The duo retained this lineup for a while, where they performed at the Fri-son as a pair, surrounded by synthesisers, a sequencer and a drum machine, where they had their highly memorable gig opening for the Irratics and the Young Gods.
It was after this show that they eventually gathered as a threesome once more, working with Hermann Eugster, who was a drummer for Steven van Zandt at the time, to record the song Keep It Away. It is possibly their most successful single to date, getting continuous airplay until the 1990s in Europe as well being championed by John Peel thanks to a mutual friend of Mario’s. The release of the single enjoyed further promotion and outreach with the subsequently produced music video on Ernst Buchmüller’s program "Backstage", which was broadcasted nationally though Swiss television.
“I did not mind working and performing alone with Priska. In fact, it could be argued that working as a duo were my favourite Nordland years as it is easier and faster to work this way.
The success of ‘Just Keep It Away’ allowed us to get bigger gigs. A memorable one that comes to mine was at the Rote Fabrik in Zurich or the Montreux Jazz Festival on the Platinum stage. When Marlene Marder left for personal reasons, we were then scouted by Andreas’ (Vollenweider) manager Hans-Walter Huggler. This increased our chances to reach our ambitions of signing with a bigger label to allow us to use a bigger budget for producing our music. When Hans-Walter saw us play at the Rote Fabrik, he didn’t like us that much; but good enough to take us. At first he wanted to produce our first album, “Mystery”, but the result of creative differences led to Hermann leaving the band before even entering the recording studio. It was not unpleasant to therefore work with guest musicians from then on there because it gave Priska and I’s creative freedom back. The recordings took place from April to June 1989 and “Mystery” released on “Impact” in January 1990. It enjoyed some success but did not lead to the desired breakthrough. Things started to fall apart from there. The album generally sold poorly and the major tour planned to promote it got canceled. Priska and I felt this way as soon as we left the studio and that the album would not get the hoped-for market reach. As a result, we got dropped by our management, and so we had to take care of our performances ourselves.
We are not ones to back down though. Priska and I were disappointed, sure, but this motivated us to go forward and to work harder together. We moved to Tuscany in 1992 to write our next album, “Three Clouds”. We set up our studio in Ponte a Poppi, undisturbed from the outside world, and started working on several demo tapes. This was around the time that Virgin France got into contact with us as they were interested in doing a release together. But it never led to anything because there was a lack of willingness to compromise. It boiled down to the fact that Virgin’s ideas of Nordland were too commercially oriented and so the potential collaboration led to no avail. So we released “Three Clouds” anyway in June 1993, consisting of twelve new songs, all which we of course composed, played, recorded and mixed at our own expense. In 1994, we decided to put Nordland on pause and pursued a different career direction to become more financially stable, eventually settling down in rural Italy in 2018.”
-Mario Scherrer. 25.05.2022.
Platinum stage at the Montreux Jazz Festival, 1988. Photo by Willi Helfenberger.
The duo Nordland have a lot to contribute, both lyrically and musically. With four releases (where three of them are self released), appearances on various compilations, Mario and Priska have been also active and creative to this day. With Mario’s sole debut recently reissued on Dee Dee’s Picks, and Priska’s solo project Ingalli, there is no lack of generated ideas and movement of sound which has prevented them from keeping busy throughout the years.
Listening to the deep and personal lyrics of songs written by Nordland can emote feelings relating to themes of depression and loneliness. For instance, ‘Just Keep It Away’ was written by Priska where she tells the story of a sailor who has lost any sense of normality and who, as a denier of reality, finally lives on the roofs of Zurich, where he dreams of the sea.
“The lyrics relate to our emotional status at the time, especially the song ‘Still waters’ is about a friend of mine who had committed suicide.”
-Mario Scherrer. 25.05.2022.
Nordland Live at the Rote Fabrik, Zurich Switzerland, 1988. Photo by Willi Helfenberger.
“The name Nordland was coined by myself, as Mario and I both liked the wide and open landscape of the north. For me, I would describe our style as fairy tale music. Upon reflection, I like to compare our music to the likes of the mysterious darkness of Siberian forests, the expanses of the Scottish plateau and the ruggedness of Norwegian fjords . But also the inevitable confrontation with the loneliness of the ego.
This said, it was always very important for us to be in complete control of our music, always refusing external influences and demands from record labels. Even if our song ‘Just Keep it Away’ was leaning to mainstream appeal, we never wanted to be stylistically categorized. Back in the eighties, new technology for making music was implemented. Sampling was very new, and so we used it to our advantage to explore new soundscapes. Our intent to generate unorthodox song structures with rhythmic experiments combined with sound cascades derived from melodic lines that turn into narrative elegies, created sound images that lie melancholy over our songs like a fine morning mist. Similar to how Mario and I worked in the past can be reflected on our latest album that was recently released. “MEZZOGIORNO” was conceived after having finished several mini albums with four songs. I wanted to complete a whole album with at least forty minutes of music and wanted to be completely satisfied with my work, which was not always so up to now.
The earliest songs of the album were written already in 2016. Because we changed our home several times and we had a lot of work to do building our house in Italy, the process of writing songs was extended up to 2018. The contents of these songs are mostly influenced by working up personal difficulties, but also by social and political themes. In Switzerland I finished recording all the instruments, in Italy in 2020 I recorded the vocals. Then I gave all attention to the mixing process because I really wanted to be happy with the sound. And I think it became a great album: eight songs which all have their own character, interesting and surprising, nothing of the ever same stuff you can hear on radio stations every day.
I produced everything alone and on my own, music and lyrics, even the cover work, except Mario plays the bass guitar and the whistling, two friends played the violin and the sax in two songs. And the mastering was done by a professional studio. This was even the case with my solo project, Ingalli. Ingalli was a solo project that I conceived in 1993 after Mario and I were talking about wanting to take a break from Nordland. My approach to making music stayed pretty much the same, using compositions and texts I have written and translating them into sound structures that could be categorised as more complete songs, with the aid of my voice, guitar and synthesiser. Mario sometimes helped out, whether with bass or vocals. Besides the usual self and independent production, engineering, artwork design and distribution of the album, it was supported with several gigs in Switzerland throughout 1997.”
-Priska Weber. 25.05.2022.