Konradsen Release New Single 'I.O.U.' From New Album 'Michael's Book On Bears'

Norwegian folk duo Konradsen will release their forthcoming album Michael's Books on Bears this Friday, March 8 via 777 Music. Today, they share “I.O.U.”one more stunning single from the album. 

“This song questions the individualism we live in. I believe it's healthy if the choices we make in life are not only about ourselves, but also our children and the places we come from. We are joined on this one by members of the Senja gospel choir from Eirik's hometown in Northern Norway.”

The duo has been announced as support for a run of dates with Angie McMahon in Europe this summer, see below for a full run of upcoming tour dates, including headlining dates in Norway kicking off March 8.

Enchanting and slyly provocative, Michael's Book on Bears began like a postcard, an open invitation to leave the cities of the world behind. During the dawning days of the pandemic, singer Jenny Marie Sabel and multi-instrumentalist Eirik Vildgren finally made good on a plan they'd both considered: exiting Oslo to return to the rural reaches of northern Norway, where they'd both been raised. Eirik decamped to Senja, a mountain-bound island at the edge of the Norwegian Sea. With her young family, Jenny landed further east in her hometown of Storfjord, becoming a schoolteacher and building a cottage in her parents' backyard with her husband by hand. 

Michael's Book of Bears affords glimpses into the lives Jenny, Eirik, and those around them lead in Norway's high latitudes and the everyday magic it conjures. There is fish roe and the Northern Lights, fire and ice, a lullaby-like cover of Terje Nilsen's document of existence high in Scandinavia and a song rendered in the tongue of the indigenous Sámi people.

Inspired by the Mikael Niemi's classic tale of northern Scandinavian intrigue, To Cook a Bear, and experiences Konradsen had back at home, Michael's Book of Bears feels like a diary, distilled into its inspirational essence and then recast as 11 gorgeous hymns, all proud of the woods from which they came.

Upcoming Tour Dates 

3/8/24 - Parkteateret, Oslo

3/9/24 - HAVET, Trondheim

3/15/24 - Kirka på Hatteng

3/16/24- Verdensteatret, Tromsø

3/21/24 - Tou scene, Stavanger

3/22/24 - Kulturhuset, Bergen

6/20/24 - London, UK, Lafayette (sold out) *

6/23/24 - London, UK, Lafayette (sold out) *

6/24/24 - London, UK, Lafayette (sold out) *

6/26/24 - Dublin, Ireland, Whelan's (sold out) *

6/30/24 - Paris, FR, La Boule Noir *

7/2/24 - Berlin, DE, Heimathafen Neukölln *

*w/ Angie McMahon

Photo Credit: Marthe Thu

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