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Let's get this bit out of the way first. Eirik Glambek Boe (air of zen contentment and borderline inscrutability) and Erlend Oye (glasses, sincere belief that he was put on this Earth to communicate) first met at an inter-schools Geography competition in Bergen, Norway.Both made it to the final and Erlend won - by dint of his incredible ability to draw a map of the world, from memory, in no time flat.
They were trying to raise awareness of Geography I guess," says Erlend, trying to change the subject. "This is what everybody writes about us," yawns Eirik.
At the time, both Eirik and Erlend were 11. They didn't see each other again until they were 16, whereupon they took the first steps that led them to life as Kings Of Convenience. Now they are poised to release their debut album Quiet Is The New Loud.
But anyway - back to Norway. Fortuitously, the pair had just bought acoustic guitars, and resolved to write songs together.
Erlend was a card-carrying Pink Floyd fan: "And the longer the song, the better," he smirks. "I'm still heavily into Atom Heart Mother." Thankfully, that didn't get in the way.
Soon enough, they found two other compadres, and formed a Cure-influenced rock group called Skog, Norwegian for forest.
Skog allowed the pair to cement their harmonic partnership, and release an EP, but one of the band had to enter the Norwegian army, and another got a job.
In the meantime, Eirik had begun studying Psychology, and Erlend was spending equal amounts of time trying to make some musical headway and fantasising.
"I'm one of those people who's always sat around wondering what the video's going to be like," he says. "Now I realise that I didn't have to worry. Somebody else does that."
The pair were still resident in Bergen. "If you compare it to any other city of that size, it's got a very good music scene," says Eirik.
"But it has very extreme scenery: even if you live in the city, you're in the middle of mountains. Someone once said it looks like San Francisco. There are a lot of hills. And when you live so close to nature, it affects you. You become aware of the eternal side of things."
"We're not that down to earth," says Erlend.
"I feel a bit of a connection to the poets," says Eirik, rather grandly. "William Blake, Shelley, Stein Mehren - looking at the horizon, longing for something."
After some time living in England, studying and playing in bands they finally did a gig as a duo at the Poetry Place in Covent Garden, settling upon the name (two acoustic guitars, no amps - convenience incarnate) and playing a handful of self-written songs.
Eirik then moved back to Norway, leaving Erlend with a 2-track KOC demo, convinced that life in a duo represented the way ahead.
Thanks to a web of contacts dating back a couple of years, and a slot at In The City, Eirik and Erlend stayed at a house owned by the cellist with Mancunian acoustic-ites Alfie.
"Coming to Manchester," says Eirik, "we met people who really appreciated our music, who were also doing things we could relate to. We met Badly Drawn Boy there."
(In fact, one night, KOC, Alfie and BDB retired to his house in Chorlton and played each other their songs. "I can remember Damon [Gough] saying, 'This is going to be a legendary night,' laughs Erlend. Overheated music hacks may wish to identify that night as the birth of so-called New Acoustic Music; the Kings, however, would rather they didn't.)
The increasingly nomadic Erlend duly moved to Manchester, while Eirik remained in Bergen. The group were on the verge of doing a deal with Twisted Nerve, but the label was still in its infancy.
After all kinds of hoo-hah - including the recording of a self-titled album for the American Kindercore label - the first Kings of Convenience 7 inch materialised at the end of 1999.
Then, via a contact Erlend had made in Manchester, they began conversations with Source, whose London office was just finding its feet.
"We played for the staff in the office," Eirik recalls. "They were sitting on the floor, and we did the songs. That's what kind of finalised it all."
The 5-track Live In A Room EP - which saw the first flurry of enthusiasm from the British press - emerged in October 2000.
It was recorded in Liverpool's Parr Street while the band spent three months working on Quiet Is The New Loud with producer Ken Nelson (Coldplay, Badly Drawn Boy...).
"We could have recorded it in a week, I suppose," shrugs Erlend, "but it would be like, 'One of us has got a cold - we have to stop for a fortnight."
Now, thankfully, the album is ready. People are already talking about Nick Drake and Sergio Mendes and that acoustic track on The Beastie Boy's Hello Nasty and Tortoise and a thousand names besides.
All that apart, it's a glorious package of intimacy, harmony and mystery that proves one thing beyond doubt: Kings Of Convenience are one of the most refreshing presences to have crash-landed in our midst in aeons.
Oh, and if you mention maps, they will kill you.
Erlend: "Well, actually Im quite proud of my mapmaking abilities. And if anyone asks me to draw one, it would be my pleasure."
links
- kings of convenience: http://www.kingsofconvenience.com/ (official)