S i L jE NERGAARD

CD 1: JAPANESE BLUE 1 BE STILL MY HEART (ACOUSTIC VERSION) 2 BASED ON A THOUSAND TRUE STORIES (ACOUSTIC VERSION) 3 THE WALTZ (ACOUSTIC VERSION) 4 I DON’T WANNA SEE YOU CRY (ACOUSTIC VERSION) 5 MERCY STREET (ACOUSTIC VERSION) 6 LULLABY TO ERLE (ACOUSTIC VERSION) 7 LOVE OF MY LIFE (ACOUSTIC VERSION) 8 JAPANESE BLUE (ACOUSTIC VERSION) 9 EN OG EN (ACOUSTIC VERSION)10 WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD (ACOUSTIC VERSION)11 JEG VIL TAKKE LIVET (ACOUSTIC VERSION)

CD 2: HAMAR RAILWAY STATION / HAMAR STASJON 1 NEXT STOP HAMAR 2 THE TRAIN NOW STANDING 3 NEVER HAPPIER THAN THIS 4 DEPARTURE TIMES 5 THE RAILWAY GIRL 6 WAITING ROOM 7 TRAIN OF FRAGILE HEARTS 8 THE NIGHT TRAVELLER 9 NESTE STOPP HAMAR10 PERRONG11 ENNÅ UNDERVEIS12 AVGANG13 TOGJENTA14 TIDEN DET TAR15 ET LITE RYKK16 NATTOGET

“The double album is a significant achievement in the career of Silje Nergaard, marking her 30th anniversary as a singer and composer. On it, she has space to reconsider and reframe her hits and best known songs and on the second record, she digs deep with a concept album inspired by her childhood memories. To Silje, singing and composing is not a profession but a calling. There are few singers, irrespective of musical genre, who are as dedicated and hard working.” Stuart Nicholson

The double album JAPANESE BLUE and HAMAR RAILWAY STATION / HAMAR STASJON is a significant achievement in the career of Silje Nergaard, marking her 30th anniversary as a singer and composer. On it, she has space to reconsider and reframe her hits and best known songs and on the second record, she digs deep with a concept album inspired by her childhood memories of her Norwegian hometown Hamar. It’s an ambitious undertaking from an artist whose restless creativity has kept her at the top of her profession ever since her first release, TELL ME WHERE YOU‘RE GOING — featuring Pat Metheny on guitar — became an international best seller in 1990.

Today, the deceptive ease with which she captivates an audience — often for three hours at a time in concert (without pausing for a break) — conceals the hard earned experience earned through exhausting tours across northern Europe and Far East. To Silje, singing and composing is not a profession but a calling. There are few singers, irrespective of musical genre, who are as dedicated and hard working. From the outset she has always regarded herself as a work in progress as she continues to grow and evolve as an artist, a process that above all demands honest self-appraisal in refining, experimenting and perfecting that which works while discard-ing that which doesn’t.

Silje’s style has seemingly effortlessly balanced the putative opposites of critical and commercial success because she really is sui generis — meaning unique. “I didn’t grow up with an idea of being in a certain genre like jazz or pop”, she says, “I just didn’t think of it like that, I just created a space of my own where probably it was a mix all of it, from there on it was a lot of hard work, some good news and bad news, and although I have done it for thirty years it now feels more real in a way, more profound”.

JAPANESE BLUE, the first album of the two CD set, features the duo of Silje and Espen Berg. “‘Japanese Blue’ is the title of the album”, says Silje, “It’s all songs that I think maybe have been some of my most important songs, my hits, or songs that have meant something to me, maybe some of my best songs, so I just called the album ‘Japanese Blue’ and of course, that song is on the album. I saw the name ‘Japanese Blue’ in a book. I knew about this colour they make in Japan and I thought, this Japanese Blue, it’s so beautiful to say and to me it was such a poetic title. I composed a song and I told my lyricist that this Japanese Blue, it’s very blue so can you make a lyric about it? Its got to have something mysterious about it and I think he succeeded and it’s a song I always love singing”.

‘Tell Me Where You’re Going’, was the hit single from her album of the same name that spent 15 weeks on the UK Top 100 chart, took the number one spot on the Japanese J-Wave chart and was in the Top Ten in every Scandinavian country. Another big hit was ‘Be Still My Heart’ from her seventh album At First Light, her most successful album to date. Another hit and concert favourite is hit ‘En og En”, Silje explaining, “I recorded it a couple of times, three times actually, but never the way I really wanted it to be — it’s called ‘On and On’ in English, a very old song”. One song Silje has always loved is ‘Gracias a la Vida’ — meaning thank you for life. “It’s a very beautiful song, originally in Spanish, by Chilean singer Violetta Parra”, explains Silje. “She is saying thank you for my eyes, my ears, thank you for everything, but sadly she committed suicide a year after recording that song. The Finnish singer Arja Saijonmaa record-ed this song in Swedish, very dramatic, but I just wanted to do it in a more lyrical way.”

In today’s instant gratification society, where musical streaming is creating its own musical cul-ture, where the single has to hook the listener within thirty seconds or be skipped, Silje’s music creates its own space where the listener is drawn into a musical world that is both compelling and profound. Her songs resonate with our deepest emotions and seem to speak to us person-ally. Like the central character from One Thousand and One Nights, the Arabian collection of folkloric tales, she is the eternal storyteller who spins tales, each one more fascinating than the last. Somehow it was fitting that in 2009 she made the album A THOUSAND TRUE STORIES.

Sitting back in her comfort zone is not Silje’s way. Her openness to new ideas and new ways of doing things has helped shape the singer she is today, a singer reaching her peak, able to give greater meaning to songs she sings than she did as a younger woman, a maturity that comes from life’s accumulated experiences both good and bad. In Silje’s case it has given her greater confidence since she is equally at home with piano, bass and drums accompaniment, a large symphonic orchestra, two or three acoustic guitars or a backdrop of male voices. Her latest challenge, just voice and the piano of Espen Berg was not a case of simply sitting down and singing a few songs with a piano player. It had to be worked on until the creative chemistry was just right.

“I like it when it’s less is more” explains Silje. “With only a piano we needed to find a way of doing it our way, so that it’s not just ‘Doing songs with a piano’. But that’s how it starts out, just a song and a piano, but we wanted to develop something special, and that takes some time, we needed to know each other better musically to develop. To do that, it’s better to play for people and develop with the audience, this is the best way, always. Rehearsing at home is very import-ant also but to play for audience — there is a big difference, so we went touring with it, the good, old fashioned way! I love it now, it’s not terrifying any more, it’s a nice concept. Music is about story telling, at least the way I hear it, and I really want to reach audiences, tell them stories they can feel, and connect to their lives”.

On second album, HAMAR RAILWAY STATION / HAMAR STASJON, Silje is accompanied by an ensemble of some of Norway’s finest musicians. A concept album that takes its inspiration from Silje’s hometown railway station, it’s the mixture of memories, dreams and reflections prompted by the comings and goings at her hometown station she recalled from her childhood memories, “As a young girl I often stood on the platform of Hamar Railway Station”, she says. “I grew up in Hamar and I was dreaming about the world, and a way to connect to me to the world was through the railway line. I couldn’t go out there into the world as a younger girl but the railway tracks did. This fascinated me. Finally, I went out into the world, and when I came back to Hamar the circle was completed — I came back to my childhood where I was dreaming about the world and suddenly I had the idea of making a story built around the railway station and what’s going on there between people — farewells and homecomings, hugs and tears sparked by both happiness and sadness”.

Hamar Railway Station / Hamar Stasjon is an album where Silje’s sophisticated song-writing is perfectly matched by Mike McGurk’s lyrics, her longtime collaborator who finds the words that perfectly match the music. A good example is ‘The Train Now Standing’. ‘It’s a song about coming back“, says Silje. “Its one of the first songs on the album and it’s a very cool song made fresh. It’s very long, different keys, for me growing-up you appreciate your roots more — when I was young I just felt ‘Oh just let me get out of here’ and then when I grew older coming back seemed to mean more to me than earlier, so this song is about sort of celebrating coming back and being grateful”.

One of the key songs on the album is ‘The Night Traveller’, its noir-ish feeling matched by lyrics rich in meanings. “As I visualise it, the night train is leaving the station and it will just go on and on into the dark”, explains Silje. “The person leaving, which the song is about, was never able to settle down anywhere, and he, or she, tries to love someone but always decides to go”. ‘Departure Time’ is a composition that has special meaning for Silje, who cites it as one of her best compositions to date, “It describes a goodbye and the minutes before the train leaves — the carriage door is closing and the love she feels and the love he doesn’t feel. It’s a very sad song about a goodbye, a last goodbye”.

Those have followed Silje’s career will be aware that on album after album, she comes up with memorable song titles that demand you play them to explore their meaning — like ’Train of Fragile Hearts’ on this album. “I liked the title because this is the girl leaving this boy before he wakes up and she’s sort of nervous and a bit scared because she’s actually leaving him and taking the train out into the unknown. She may be happy but she’s also scared as she joins the train with other fragile hearts, you don’t know why they are there but you can try and guess”.

The first eight tracks of Hamar Railway Station / Hamar Stasjon are performed in English but then Silje does an unusual thing — each song is repeated, but sung in her native Norwegian. Does this change their meaning? Do they sound somehow different? Maybe they do, maybe they don’t but you do hear them from a fresh perspective that somehow underlines their musi-cal qualities. It’s an interesting twist that truly does echo the lyrics of ‘The Train Now Standing’ by returning “home” to her Norwegian language, a concept album in every sense of the word.

“I still love the idea of a concept album”, Silje reflects. “I think it means something to create a world that lasts for more than four or five minutes — the length of a single — I like the idea of having fifty-sixty minutes of being in different ‘world’, I like the whole idea of making songs fit together and making an order. I like things to take time, and you can choose if you like to listen to one song, of course, but I still believe in giving that space for more than one song, giving time to go on a musical journey. A recording is a space to tell stories, to invite people into your world. I understand what music can do to people, because I feel it myself, I know how important it is, and in some ways I feel the way I sing now — it somehow seems more important, more serious and more meaningful than ever before”.

JAPANESE BLUE1 BE STILL MY HEART Silje Nergaard /Mike McGurk 2 BASED ON A THOUSAND TRUE STORIES Silje Nergaard/Mike McGurk 3 THE WALTZ Silje Nergaard/Mike McGurk 4 DON’T WANNA SEE YOU CRY Silje Nergaard/ Mike McGurk 5 MERCY STREET Peter Gabriel6 LULLABY TO ERLE Silje Nergaard/Nils Einar Vinjor/Mike McGurk 7 LOVE OF MY LIFE Freddie Mercury8 JAPANESE BLUE Silje Nergaard/Mike McGurk 9 EN OG EN Silje Nergaard/Kristin A. Sandberg

BONUS TRACKS: 10 WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD Bob Thiele/George David Weiss1 1 JEG VIL TAKKE LIVET Violeta Parra/Kristin A. Sandberg

Silje Nergaard - Vocals / Espen Berg - piano

All arrangements by Silje Nergaard and Espen BergRecorded and mixed by Mike Hartung at Propeller Music Division, Oslo. Mastered by Morgan Nicolaysen Propeller Mastering, Oslo Cover Photo: Julie PikeDesign cover: Matin Kvamme

Produced by Silje Nergaard

HAMAR RAILWAY STATION 1 NEXT STOP HAMAR 2 THE TRAIN NOW STANDING 3 NEVER HAPPIER THAN THIS 4 DEPARTURE TIMES 5 RAILWAY GIRL 6 WAITING ROOM 7 TRAIN OF FRAGILE HEARTS 8 THE NIGHT TRAVELLER All songs composed by Silje Nergaard (music) and Mike Mc Gurk (words) except Next Stop Hamar: Wetle Holte HAMAR STASJON 9 NESTE STOPP HAMAR Wetle Holte10 PERRONG music Silje Nergaard, words Trygve Skaug 11 ENNÅ UNDERVEIS music Silje Nergaard, words Kristin A Sandberg12 AVGANG music Silje Nergaard, words Kristin A Sandberg13 TOGJENTA music Silje Nergaard, words Trygve Skaug 14 TIDEN DET TAR music Silje Nergaard, words Kristin A Sandberg15 ET LITE RYKK music Silje Nergaard, words Trygve Skaug 16 NATTOGET music Silje Nergaard, words Ole Paus

Track 1 / 9 (Next Stop Hamar/Neste Stop Hamar ) Wetle Holte - drums, metallofon, dulcimer, electronicsTrack 2 / 10 (The Train Now Standing/Perrong) Andreas Ulvo - fender rhodes, minimoog, mellotron, strings Audun Erlien - bass / Wetle Holte - drums, percussion Silje Nergaard / Karla Totland backing vocalsTrack 3 / 11 (Never Happier Than This/Ennå Underveis) Andreas Ulvo - fender rhodes, clavinet, piano, synth / Audun Erlien - bass / Wetle Holte - drums, percussion, dulcimer / Silje Nergaard - backing vocals Track 4 / 12 (Departure Time/Avgang) Silje Nergaard and Mike Hartung - harp Silje Nergaard - strings / Andreas Ulvo - rhodes and synth Track 5 / 13 (The Railway Girl/Togjenta) Andreas Ulvo - fender rhodes, minimoog, poly800 / Audun Erlien - bass / Wetle Holte - drums, percussion, electronics / Karla Nergaard Totland / Silje Nergaard; backing vocals Track 6 / 14 (Waiting Room/Tiden det tar) Andreas Ulvo - piano / Nils Einar Vinjor - guitar / Wetle Holte - electronics / Karla Nergaard Totland/Silje Nergaard - backing vocalsTrack 7 / 15 (Train of Fragile Hearts/Et lite rykk) Andreas Ulvo - fender rhodes, clavinet, organ / Audun Erlien - bass / Wetle Holte - drums, percussion, dulcimerTrack 8 / 16 (The Night traveller /Nattoget) Andreas Ulvo - clavinet, fender rhodes / Sidsel Walstad - harp impro / Silje Nergaard - backing vocals

All vocals produced and recorded by Silje Nergaard at Studio Dur og Moll. All instruments Recorded at Skogen Studio, Sus Studio, Ulvo`s barn.Mixed by Mike Hartung at Propeller Music Division Oslo. Mastered by Morgan Nicoalysen at Propeller Mastering, OsloFront Cover drawing by Silje Nergaard. Front cover design by Martin Kvamme Photo in booklet by Julie Pike. Make-up and styling by Hilde Ottem

Produced by Wetle Holte

THANK YOU My warmest thank you to

Mike McGurk, Kristin Sandberg, Trygve Skaug and Ole Paus

Espen Berg Wetle Holte

Mike Hartung

The musicians: Wetle Holte, Andreas Ulvo, Audun Erlien, Sidsel Walstad, Nils Einar Vinjor and Karla Totland Nergaard

Morgan NicolaysenLisbeth Wiberg Olsen, Hilde Sørum and Tommy Gammeltorp at Backstage Management

Hilde Ottem, Julie Pike, Martin Kvamme Sony Music Germany, Sony Music Norway

Marie Philstrøm Mads Jacobsen

…and thank you to my hometown Hamar.

Supported by Fond For Lyd og Bilde

All Photos: Julie PikeStyling: Hilde Ottem

Design: Knut Schötteldreier

Sony Music Executive Producer: Sven Schuhmann Sony Music Project Management: Leo Beck

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