by David Wilikofsky
It’s well understood that music has a deep connection to memory; hearing a few notes of the right song can transport you to another place and time. It’s certainly true for me. “You Belong With Me” brings me back to my summer job in a hospital storeroom where country radio blared all day long. A Horse Jumper of Love song can whisk me away to countless sleepless nights spent in DIY venues. It’s an innate quality of music that Oslo trio Flight Mode understand well. Each of the band’s two releases to date are dedicated to a specific time and place in frontman Sjur Lyseid’s youth, constructing a memory of the sounds and events that defined it. Their debut, TX ’98, was a bittersweet set of emo pop dedicated to the year Lyseid was sixteen and living in the United States. Their latest, Torshov ’05, paints a vivid portrait of mid 20s ennui.
The location this time around is Torshov, Norway, a suburb on the outskirts of Oslo, and the age is twenty four. Though there are some emotional peaks (The Window Was Open But the Smoke Wasn’t Moving, the debut release from Lyseid’s old band Monzano, gets a shoutout early on opener “Twenty Four”), by and large the record is imbued with a sense of listlessness. Lyseid stands behind the counter of the record store where he works “jaded and bored”; he chronicles missed connections and crossed wires. He describes it as “a year of limbo, a leap year in every sense but the literal.” While the sonic palette of emo-pop hasn’t shifted drastically from TX ’98, it’s a more subdued, less bombastic record than its predecessor. Standing on the precipice of adulthood, the carefree adventures of youth are replaced with low paying jobs and a growing understanding of the world.
“Dö Yoü Rëmëmbër”, the album’s closing track, feels like the purest distillation of Flight Mode’s vision to date. It starts as flashes of memories: sipping from a paper cup, road trips, fleeting moments of physical connection. As the track continues, the edges between recollection and reality begin to fade. “I think we finally kissed, but I can’t quite remember it” Lyseid sings, becoming less and less certain of each detail. The song ends with Lyseid whispering “Now I just can’t remember it“, growing ever more confident in his uncertainty. The truth is the details don’t really matter, it’s the emotions behind these half remembered scenes that linger long after the song ends; each sighed word, each crescendo, each note drips with a specific kind of melancholic beauty. It’s the feeling of being young and broke, having your whole life ahead of you and not quite realizing it. The details of Lyseid’s memories may diverge from the past; we’ll never really know the truth. Only one thing is certain: the feelings Flight Mode capture in these songs ring absolutely true.