Artist: Flunk
Title: Chemistry And Math

Format: CD/LP/digital
Catno: BS183CD/BS183LP
Release Period: Oct/Nov 2017
Distribution/export: Kudos Distribution

 

TRACKLISTING

01 TMTTUOT 0
2 ChemistryAndMath
03 Petrified
04 June,July
05 Outsiders
06 Assassins(WithWaterGuns)
07 Pheromone(FadeAway)
08 YourBeautifulLies
09 Reprise
10 Hello (Planet Awesome)

DISCOGRAPHY (ordinary albums)

For Sleepyheads Only (2002)
Morning Star (2004)
Personal Stereo (2007)
This Is What You Get (2009)
Lost Causes (2013)
Chemistry And Math (2017)


Seriously, how is it possible to spend two years and four months making a pop music album? It’s obviously not because of a fetish with technical perfection. Not a single take on ‘Chemistry and Math’ has been recorded in a recording studio. It is all living room, bedroom or kitchen table work. Which is the way we have recorded all Flunk albums. Except the last, ‘Lost Causes’, which was mostly done in a studio.

So really, how does it take 28 months to put together 10 tracks of alternative, lo-fi popular music? Well, life? Just life. We’re busy with stuff like everybody else, ordinary stuff. And it’s all in there, really. In the air in the recordings and in-between the lines of words.

‘Chemistry and Math’ might be about how you acknowledge the inevitability of the rules and patterns and natural laws, it’s not so much mystery, it’s math, and chemistry, and hormones, and a constant chaos of coincidence.

Well, it’s in there, go check it out. In there are also a lot of popular music references, some obvious one, some slightly hidden. As usual. Writing the songs for a debut, ‘For Sleepyheads Only’, at the beginning of the century, now feels like a sunny haze of innocence and blue skies. And a total absence of black clouds. ‘Chemistry and Math’ is installed in a much bleaker and more distorted soundscape, reflecting the mood of the world thrown at us in a fucked up era. But we’re happy with the songs and the sound, happy to finally be finished and most of all happily looking forward to meet our fantastic fans around the world.

‘Chemistry And Math’ is Flunk’s sixth ordinary album (excluding remix-, best of- and demo-cover-compilations).

Flunk Basic Facts

Flunk started out around 2000/2001, originally as a trio: Ulf Nygaard (programming, vocals), Jo Bakke (guitars, bass and more) and Anja Øyen Vister (vocals, guitars). Ulf started his musical career in the early nineties with Folk & Røvere (Polygram Norway), a trip hop inspired boy/girl duo singing in Norwegian. Jo started out in Happy Campers (Sony Music Norway/Ninja Tune) later as a part of the duo Antenna (Guidance Recordings). Anja had been working on solo material for some years, and more or less accidentally ended up doing vocals on the first Flunk track to be released, ‘Indian Rope Trick’, winter 2001 on the compilation Arctic Circles 3. Flunk gradually expanded to a five-piece band, including the live musicians, Erik Ruud (drums) and Ole Kristian Wetten (bass).

Full album discography (ordinary albums in bold):

  • For Sleepyheads Only (2002)
  • Treat Me Like You Do (2003) (Remixes of tracks from For Sleepyheads Only)
  • Morning Star (2004)
  • Play America (2005) (four new songs, four remixes from Morning Star tracks)
  • Personal Stereo (2007)
  • Democracy (2007) (Remixes of tracks from Personal Stereo)
  • This Is What You Get (2009)
  • The Songs We Sing (2012) (Best of compilation)
  • Lost Causes (2013)
  • Deconstruction Time Again (2015) (Remixes, mostly from Lost Causes tracks)
  • Cover Ups (2016) (compilation of demo/live rehersal cover versions)
  • Chemistry And Math (2017)
  • Flunk made a big impact with their downbeat cover version of Blue Monday on their debut album, the track has to this date been streamed more than 1,8 million times on Spotify. They also have a big US following, mainly because the two first album was released on license in the US. Tracks from the early albums have been licensed to numerous compilations, and have been featured in tv-shows like ‘The OC’. On digital formats, Flunk is biggest in the US, Germany, Great Britain and Turkay on streaming numbers, and also big in Greece on YouTube views.
  • They have had tours, concerts and festival gigs in Norway, UK, USA, Turkey, Poland, Russia and China. They plan to do the releaseparty for the new album in Istanbul, and will play in various European cities in the autumn/early winter. A US tour is planned for early 2018.
  • The new album will be out on both CD and vinyl. Flunk have had limited availability on physical formats the last few years, but the new album will be distributed in the UK and exported worldwide through Kudos Distribution in the UK, and re-press and re-release of the other albums are planned.