The Norwegian power-punk-noise-free-improv duo MoE – partners in life and music, bassist and vocalist Guro S. Moe and guitarist Håvard Skaset – has been working for more than twenty years and has released more than twenty albums, including collaborations with almost all corners of the experimental scene.
Live at Børsen Kulturhus is the first-ever live album produced at the massive production facility for music and sound art outside Oslo, MoE’s home base – literally, but also a production space with 3 studios, a library, a place for artist residency and workshops, and the home of the infamous Octobass, a 4-meter-tall gigantic bass.
MoE’s invited its long-time collaborator and friend – Japanese drummer Ikuro Takahashi (ex Fushitsusha and Maher Shalal Hash Baz), who has already recorded before with MoE (Painted, Relative Pitch, 2020, and Jeg Kommer Ikke Til å Si Det Til Noen, UFO Creations, 2026), and was about to begin a first Euiropean tour with MoE and did the album’s cover art-work, and Danish, Oslo-based alto sax player Signe Emmeluth (of Emmeluth’s Amoeba and Paal Nilssen-Love’s Circus). MoE recorded before with another Danish, Norway-based alto sax player, Mette Rasmussen.
The album captures MoE in its most volatile, punkish form, while Guro Moe sticks to the double bass (for the first time on a whole MoE album), leaving aside her electric bass. The duo enjoys Takahishi’s explosive drumming, but also incorporates Emmeluth’s commanding, free spirit, and allows enough space for individual solos, including Skaset’s Eastern-tinged solo guitar, beautifully abstracted by Emmeluth’s solo that pierces – literally – the sky.
Live at Børsen Kulturhus is a wild, mostly merciless, yet spiced with openly emotional eruptions, invigorating and liberating musical journey into the unknown, one that you would want to experience anew as soon as its compact, powerful 36-minute run ends, again and again.
Eyal Hareuveni
Guro Skumsnes Moe (double bass, vocals), Håvard Skaset (electric guitar), Ikuro Takahashi (drums), Signe Emmeluth (alto saxophone)
