"The Sound of Birdsong" is GISKE's Love Letter to Staying and Leaving

Rune Berg and Alex Rinde have been making music together since 1991, when a bike ride down the only hill on Norway's tiny Giske Island changed everything. Alex, then 21 and showing off by riding no-handed, turned to his 15-year-old cousin and asked if he wanted to start a band. The answer was an immediate yes. From that moment, through gold albums with The Margarets and various other projects (including the gloriously short-lived Ane's Addiction), these two have been inseparable collaborators.

"The Sound of Birdsong" is GISKE at their most modern yet still unmistakably themselves. The song captures that beautiful tension between staying put and wanting to sail straight out to "the lighthouse of your dreams." The protagonist wakes to birdsong while someone close talks about galleries, museums, and exotic destinations, and you can feel the pull between comfort and adventure.

The production walks a nice line between the band's British pop influences and contemporary indie folk. There's a dreaminess here that Berg mentions has always followed them. GISKE has been at this for over three decades, and "The Sound of Birdsong" proves they're still finding new ways to articulate the quiet desperation of wanting to be somewhere, anywhere else.

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