It’s coming up on a decade since I first encountered Marte Eberson, keyboarding for Highasakite while providing some tasty backing vocals. I wondered if, like Phil Collins did in Genesis, she might get the opportunity to step out, in her case from behind the Nords, and sing something as the front woman but it wasn’t to be.
Perhaps there was a lurking fear somewhere that she might turn out to be a better option, outshining the incumbent, as Collins had done.
When Highasakite shed three members I looked out for what she might do thereafter and I’ve tracked her through the years since, first with Löv (who really need to record some more material, they had all the makings) to a resumption of her pre-Highasakite solo career, numerous singles and finally the album ‘Free’ in 2023.
As she adapted what was a fairly aggressive solo style back in the day to a more passive one her songs also became more ethereal. That isn’t a word I care for much, you often see it banded about and applied to any old female singer that whispers her vocals like she doesn’t want anyone to hear them.
But in the sense of Marte sounding otherworldly and fragile, the description is spot on. She’s like a Norwegian Snow White. She should apply to play the part when Disney boots out Rachel Zegler as they might well do before the remake of the classic film is released this spring.
Like Snow White she’s been kissed by a raft of Princes and seen them all through the magic mirror of the smart phone. But she also knows how to poison them away (metaphorically speaking of course) when they’ve run out of usefulness.
And that is what has broadly summed up her songs to date – relations and their complexities, wild abandon, stark reality, and, overwhelmingly, the need to be free.
Now she’s changed labels to Oslo Records and with it there is a change of direction. This time the boot is on the other foot as he is the one whose mind is somewhere else, not her. And she’s smitten.
So she “loves him and it hurts her soul”. She “needs him to be the fire” but he’s a damp squib.
She’s Jane Eyre to Mr Rochester; Elizabeth Bennet to Mr Darcy in Pride & Prejudice. Bridget Jones to Everyman.
These romantic unrequited characters have popped up throughout literary history but the 2025 version is brought to life by Marte with a smart arrangement that includes both soft keys and a fuzzy guitar which should grate when heard together but which don’t, and which could represent each of the two individual characters.
Like a lot of Marte’s songs it is so sensual that it is best experienced with the lighting turned down, aromatic candles, a glass of wine, tissues (for the lady), some Vigdis Rosenkilde – Kiteni chocolate and… (up to you).
Little blue pills aren’t in the same league.
More singles are coming this spring, with a new album planned for autumn, which she promises will be her most personal work to date. Jeez, I’m shaking already.
Incidentally I love the promo picture with a wisp of hair which could be a monocle and which makes her look like a 19th century fin de siecle Parisian aristocrat.
Find her on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marteebersonmusic
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marteeberson/
