Ingrid Døssland, the incredible Norwegian singer and songwriter better known as DØSSI, released her debut bluebirds EP in 2021, a collection of songs about loss, grief and memory. She followed this up in 2022 with a series of singles mixing songs of hope and songs of love and relationships. These tracks were collected as the first half of her debut album lovebirds, pt.1: love. With 2022 drawing to a close, DØSSI is releasing the second half of the album; lovebirds, pt.2: let go 11th of November. The whole album chapter of lovebirds “love, let go and love again” is releasing 2nd of December.
2022’s singles from DØSSI mixed golden hues of hope and letting go with lighter blues addressing the ups and downs of love. Across all her tracks, DØSSI plays with the bird motif, whether that’s birdsong in the background chatter of her music or the theme of letting birds fly: these songs are about processing feelings, and releasing these «birds» into the air, to fly off, to allow the healing process to take place.
lovebirds, pt.1: love was the first part of DØSSI’s debut album; a group of songs which move seamlessly from upbeat to desolate to loving across its running time. pt.2: let go is, as the title suggests, about letting go: of thoughts and feelings, of traumas and old relationships, of the person we once were and of the baggage our lives no longer need. Letting go, for DØSSI, doesn’t always imply sadness and loss – often these birds fly free and grow into something else, something positive.
In a very back-to-front fashion, some of the songs on pt.2: let go have lived longest with DØSSI. «The album has long felt like an endless dream that’s finally taken shape and taken root in reality,» says Ingrid. «Large parts of it have lived already for up to a year, and these are the foundations of the record.»
Everything started for DØSSI with «time will heal her«. Written with Trygve Tronstad on what Ingrid describes as «a very hungover Sunday afternoon» in the attic of the collective That Trygve lived in. «It was so low under the ceiling there that I had to sit in a duffel bag on the floor,» recalls Ingrid. «We ate frozen pizza and buns and felt a little extra about the day-after depression, and that was probably what laid the foundation for the atmosphere in the song. It was the very first song we wrote together, and which has led to us continuing to work together on ‘let’s be okay‘ and ‘last time together / how it ended‘ – all of which I had recorded at home and tried to produce myself.»
Based on these four songs, DØSSI envisioned a tale in two parts, with before and after stories, and how feelings in relationships always seem to go in circles: «love – let go – love again», says the Norwegian. «For me, it makes a lot of sense to think like that. I don’t just mean love stories, but also friendships, family relationships and relationships with oneself. We learn all the time, and base our next steps on the past – not always with as much success of course, but we try – all the time. And I think there is something very, very beautiful about that. Everyone just wants to be loved, right?»
Part two of the album centres, appropriately, on the track «art of letting go«. Written with Odd Martin (writer and producer for AURORA and Sigrid) it’s the most upbeat song in DØSSI’s canon so far, an indie-rock song with glorious harmonies, which took its time to find its final form. «Letting go is not only painful and sad,» says Ingrid. «This is a song about the liberation in letting go of things that hold you back from being able to live life on your own terms. Me and Odd Martin visited several other producers along the way before we managed to land on the version that felt most right. It’s the first time it’s been so difficult to get the right production on a song up. In the end, we turned up the pace on the eve of the deadline…it finally felt right! There is of course something ironic about it, considering what the song is about… but I’m glad I didn’t let go on the fight of making this song feel right.»
DØSSI’s songs often have a «feel» to them. You can hear snippets of bird song or found sounds in the background, studio chatter, fingers sliding along guitar strings or repeated motifs. It adds a rustic charm to already beautiful music. «I’m incredibly fond of unpolished sounds, which are usually quite ugly on their own, but which overall add a roughness,» says Ingrid. «This can be a lot of distortion on the guitar and vocals, hard bass, an acidic synth, mobile phone recordings from things that happen in everyday life, screaming, cutting sounds from a cymbal… It’s very rare that I have a production without a certain element of ‘ugliness’. We want, as musicians, to create a universe and capture the listener’s attention. It’s so rare that you get time to just sit and listen. Our universe is soft, safe and meditative but with some hidden elements.»
The standout motif in DØSSI’s music are the birds, the start and end point of everything, it feels like. «There’s something special about writing about the more serious and sad parts of life, both in terms of being able to put the feelings into words, but also how it makes me feel after they are written down,» explains Ingrid. «It eases the weight off my shoulders and heart in a way that other things don’t. There’s something extra nice about seeing the songs live around other people too. After all, they fly freely once they are released. People themselves can choose to put them on when they feel like it and they can mean and mean different things to different people. So for me it’s very natural to look at the songs like birds. The song is a baby bird…which can fly when released or played at a concert, and grow when people play them wherever they are in the world. It might sound a bit pretentious, but I just think it’s a rather nice thought. Also, I’m a bit obsessed in finding hope in things and so the album reflects that: love, let go and love again.»
lovebirds, pt.2: let go is out 11 November on GEMS/Warner Music Norway.
«døssi’s purpose as an artist is to create a musical space where people find refuge, take a break from the daily stresses of life and take a moment to just listen, stop thinking and lose themselves in music.» – watch a 30min interview between døssi and Mundo Peliculas
