FatCat first became aware of Norwegian multi-instrumentalist / singer / songwriter Silje Nes through a unique and charming demo she sent us in early 2006. Silje grew up in the tiny town of Leikanger, in Sognefjord, the largest fjord in Norway. In 2000, she moved to the rainy town of Bergen, and for the past few years has been living in Berlin. Silje has previously played in an indie pop band, and other highlights from a diverse musical background include playing timpani in an orchestra and bass drum in a marching band.
Starting making her own music around 2001, Silje began by recording on 4-track demo software through a tiny inbuilt microphone on her laptop. Though she’d previously studied classical piano, when she started recording, she did so with guitars and instruments she had no previous experience of playing. In this she was simply guided by the sounds she loved, and the excitement of discovering new instruments and sounds without learned conventions. Starting out by working purely instrumentally, she made use of whatever equipment she could get hold of - guitars and an old synth, a cello, a drum kit, a laptop, as well as loop pedals to build layers of her own playing. Little by little she also found ways of including her own voice in the mix, both as texture and song, and her music has organically evolved from there.
