Whalebone

Savoy's previously self-titled fifth studio album from 2004, available on vinyl for the first time! 180g vinyl with brand new cover art. Will be released at the same time as "Reasons to Stay Indoors" (2001), the band's fourth studio album that also has not been available on vinyl before.

Savoy is the band Paul Waaktaar-Savoy (guitar, vocals and keyboards) formed with his wife Lauren (guitar and vocals), and Frode Unneland (drums and vocals), following a-ha’s separation in 1994.

For the follow-up to Reasons To Stay Indoors, the band broke with tradition and brought in an outside producer in Madrugada member Frode Jacobsen, who helmed four of the tracks. Guests included the boys’ choir Sølvguttene (whose voices can be heard on the high school drama of ‘Shooting Spree’), and Ours frontman Jimmy Gnecco, who took on ‘The Breakers’, a song originally cut during the troubled sessions for a-ha’s seventh studio album, Lifelines.

Although Paul welcomed the stress-free surroundings that Savoy offered away from a-ha’s internal conflicts, there was an underlying sadness on the band’s fifth studio album, which was noticeably darker in tone. “Whalebone was a mix of great joy since we had our little boy, and we were obsessed by that,” says Paul, “but at the same time, great sorrow since Lauren's sister fell ill and succumbed to her illness in the middle of it. So, yeah, it knocked us off our feet and left us numb. We didn't know how to deal with it at all.”

Like its predecessor, Whalebone wasn’t short of New York references. While the city was still coming to terms with September 11, Paul’s appreciation of its beauty was unwavering, notably on the ephemeral ‘Watertowers’ and its vivid snow-capped evocations. “Manhattan is especially magical when it snows,” says Paul. “Every winter you’ll have one or two Nor’easters that dump a ton of snow. Ten million people but everything’s dead quiet.” It’s an unashamedly Beatles-esque moment, but Paul also acknowledges the influence of The Band on the record, citing ‘Bovine’ – which comically depicts a lazy farmer attempting to authenticate his livelihood with various agricultural purchases – as an obvious example. “To escape the craziness of Manhattan we bought a place in Woodstock and spent most weekends up there: planting stuff, seeing things grow, checking on the wildlife,” he explains. “That song must’ve been inspired by all that. And Levon Helm lived a few minutes away!”

Arguably, the cornerstone of the record was the single ‘Whalebone’, which was also featured in the award-winning film, Hawaii, Oslo. It notably recycled to great effect a section of the lyrics from a-ha track ‘Locust’. “It was written the same way ‘Velvet’ was written, ignited and born out of Lauren’s verse which I absolutely loved,” says Paul, “and the chorus I wrote out of that made me think of ‘Locust’ for some reason, but this time I could expand on those lyrics.”

With this new gatefold vinyl reissue, the band have taken the opportunity to not only revise the artwork (utilising a somewhat macabre shot that was originally included in the two-disc digipak version), but also rename the self-titled album. “I always loved the art film that Jason Brandenberg did for ‘Isotope’,” says Paul, “and so we decided to take to use a couple of stills from that film as part of the artwork. When it comes to the title, we always talked about the album at the time as Whalebone, so now we’ve just made it easier!”