sound as language

Flight Mode

The Three Times collects the first three EPs from Oslo, Norway's Flight Mode. Led by singer/songwriter Sjur Lyseid, each EP contains four songs referencing a year and place in Lyseid's life. When Flight Mode recorded their first batch of songs Lyseid never expected it to become a full-fledged band. He just asked some friends, Anders Blom and Eirik Kirkemyr, to tag along and help him realize some songs he had written. The trio didn't have a clear vision of the musical direction they would take, they just brought their own sensibilities to the table and drank from the overflow. There was no intention for the songs to have much significance and Lyseid certainly didn't anticipate them blossoming into his coming-of-age novel in a punk trilogy of EPs. Yet they did just that.

Lyseid had been writing songs for years and had a knack for both melody and words. But for some reason, the Flight Mode songs seemed to resonate with everyone on a deeper level. Lyseid used to only have one rule when writing (and one that he admittedly broke frequently): never write about yourself. However, the songs he wrote for Flight Mode took the exact opposite approach, which was both liberating and awkward for Lyseid. Perhaps embracing the hyper-subjective made the songs ring truer. It certainly seemed to make them more relatable to the listener. And maybe for Lyseid as well.

This would inform the songs Flight Mode hadn't written yet. Both the music, which was intuitive, and the lyrics, personal almost to the point of being universally significant. Somehow Flight Mode walked the line between ‘this doesn't really matter’ and ‘this means everything’ and stumbled upon something magical in between. From youthful exuberance (TX, '98) to jaded indifference (Torshov, '05) to the overwhelming realities of life (Tøyen, ‘13)... Flight Mode presents twelve songs and The Three Times.