Ephemera

This Norwegian pop trio's name, which the dictionary defines as "a short-lived thing," grows more ironic with each passing day. By the time things really started to take off for Ephemera, the childhood friends had already been playing together for almost ten years. They came together as a group in 1994 in the city of Bergen, and quickly drew attention with their charmingly girlish easy-on-the-ear acoustic pop. They signed a multiple-album deal with record industry giants BMG while still in their late teens, and released their debut album, Glue, as early as 1996. But the relations with BMG did not work out too well, prompting Ephemera to walk out on the record company after just one album.

It took them four years to re-emerge with 2000's fine album Sun on their own eponymous label. Inevitably, they had gained some maturity to speak of, further enhancing the sweet, harmonic pop sound that was their fundamental right from the start. Delightful single "Happy, Grateful, Aware" was perhaps the band's first bona fide classic, a tune so catchy it was actually featured on the infamous Olsen twins' soundtrack CD Getting There in 2002. Like the rest of the album, it was tastefully produced and arranged with the help of Bergen-based studio wiz Yngve Saetre, while the girls were helped out by a score of Bergen's finest musicians. The fine songs and ever-charming harmonies combined with the lush production came to be the sound of Ephemera as it is known and loved.

With Sun and its successful singles having established Ephemera as a force to be reckoned with, the follow-up album, Balloons and Champagne, came out only one year after its predecessor. Though lacking any singles as immediate as the sublime "Happy, Grateful, Aware," it gained good reviews and further increased the band's popularity. Although they had already achieved quite a success in Norway, Ephemera's popularity exploded when they released the enormously successful single "Girls Keep Secrets in the Strangest Ways" and following album Air in 2003. For the first time, they became household names and huge sellers. With this release they even managed to gain a strong following and considerable sales outside of Norway, mainly in Asia and continental Europe.

2004 saw the release of Monolove, the group's fifth album, very much in the same vein as their previous outings. Though lacking an immediate pop single, it was fairly well received by audience and critics alike. ~ Anders Kaasen