Sandra Kolstad

Unlearning

SOFT HARD

Things

Jon Fosse

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Sandra Kolstad’s electronic pop music has given her distinct voice attention and praise from the 
Norwegian and international music scene. She is currently preparing her new album, Burning Love. 
With a taste for conceptual albums, this time Kolstad has laid her interest on the ups and downs of 
desire, and the ideas of a love that can make us blind to red flags and black holes. Some of life’s 
worst wounds can come from these intense flames. The term Burning Love also points to the work 
needed to heal from damaging relationships. It evokes images of renewal and rising like a phoenix 
from the ashes. In the making of the album, Kolstad has used her own experiences and transformed 
them into strong, yet vulnerable works about pain and finding a way out. Kolstad uses the distinct 
world of modular synthesizers to create a warm, yet distant, stringent and floating soundscape. On 
the album she exposes a brighter, more poppy side to herself – at the same time she’s more 
experimental than ever before. 
Kolstad is the classically trained pianist who stormed into the Norwegian electronic pop scene with 
authority when she released her debut album. CRUX received rave reviews, including Aftenposten 
(Norway’s most widely circulated newspaper), who wrote that "Norway has finally gained a worthy 
front figure for electronic music." The daily newspaper proclaimed her "Norway's new electronic 
pop queen". Since then, Kolstad has released three records: (Nothing) Lasts Forever (2012), Zero 
Gravity State of Mind (2014) and San Silva (2017). The first two gave her radio slots in Norway and 
abroad, as well as playing some of Scandinavia’s most prestigious summer festivals like Roskilde 
and Øyafestivalen. When Kolstad released San Silva in 2017, many critiques meant it was Kolstad’s 
best work to date. 
An artist in the truest sense of the word, Kolstad is famous for her visual live shows and award 
winning music videos. She has collaborated with artists such as Birk Nygaard and Gunnhild Bakke. 
Kolstad has toured extensively in England, USA, Canada, Russia, South America, Spain and 
Germany. Her collaborations with a number of artists, such as Bergen's Miss Tati, the Danish pop 
hope Asbjørn, Lucy Swann, Argentinian Diosque and Icelandic GusGus, have given her a platform 
to expand her sound. On Burning Love Kolstad works with creative twin and legendary Norwegian 
producer Yngve Sætre, drummer and co-producer Jonas Barsten and modular synth guru Joakim 
Fossum. 
In addition to producing and releasing pop music, Kolstad works as a composer in other contexts. 
She was nominated for a Heddaprisen (the Norwegian Oscars) for the music she wrote for the play 
Songfuglen at Det Norske Teatret in Oslo, one of the leading theatres in the Norwegian capital. 
Since then, she has composed the music for the play “The Family That Could Talk About 
Everything” at Den Nationale Scene in Bergen, where she also made her debut as an actor. In 2018, 
Kolstad composed a commissioned piece for Litteraturhuset in Oslo with French author Edouard 
Louis, as well as the music for Samlaget's 150th anniversary at the main stage at Det Norske 
Teatret, an event that was praised in the press and the Royal Family. 
Kolstad has gotten scholarships and attention for her work as a lyricist. In the review of San Silva, 
Klassekampen wrote: "(...) something about Kolstad's lyrics sticks in your mind and stays there for 
a long time. Since she started producing her extravagant electronic pop with CRUX in 2011, she has 
shown that she is a formidable songwriter who is able to turn words and phrases so they mean 
several things at the same time, depending on whose ear is listening." On Burning Love, Kolstad has tried to develop a language that depicts the different stages of a toxic 
relationship: The distortion of reality, the uncertainty, the abuse of power and the feeling of losing 
oneself. And in the end, hopefully, finding a way back to yourself, and maybe even something new.

Burning Love

Sandra Kolstad has used her own experiences and transformed them into strong, yet 
vulnerable works about pain and finding a way out. Kolstad uses the distinct world of 
modular synthesizers to create a warm, yet distant, stringent and floating soundscape. 
“Catch 22” is the last single before she reveals the whole story in album format 
Burning Love May 10th 
Kolstad has tried to develop a language that depicts the different stages of a toxic 
relationship: The distortion of reality, the uncertainty, the abuse of power and the 
feeling of losing oneself. And in the end, hopefully, finding a way back to yourself, 
and maybe even something new. 
Sandra about “Catch 22”: is a love song cast out to an unidentified recipient. The 
intimacy that can instanty develop between two people who don’t know each other. 
It’s also a song about what one is willing to do for the experience of love. Falling in 
love involves a great deal of hope, and courage, and the very real possibility of being 
very disappointed.

Catch 22

A Minute Ago is about how abrupt and brutal a relationship can turn. The feeling that can arise 
when your nearest rejects you, because it is not just the relationship that crumbles, but also 
everything around you. The world, existence, and worst of all, the deepest, innermost parts of 
yourself. That you yourself cease to exist because the other does not see you anymore.
I wrote the song because I am interested in what becomes apparent in some relationships, namely 
that we are not as restricted in our abilities as we might like to believe. I am very vulnerable to what 
you do when we develop a certain bond with someone. The boundaries between the individuals 
can be blurred, both in good and bad.
What is so amazing about pop music is that you can sing about cruel and painful subjects within a 
façade of danceable, light music. Shape and content can be in strange contradiction yet create a 
beautiful juxtaposition. A Minute Ago is produced close collaboration with my top companions on 
my new album Burning Love, namely Jonas Barsten and Yngve Sætre (<3).
An artist in the truest sense of the word, Sandra Kolstad’s music has given her distinct voice 
attention and praise from the Norwegian and international music scene. Kolstad is a classically 
trained pianist who stormed into the electronic pop scene with authority. With a taste for conceptual 
albums, her upcoming album release, Burning Love, uses her own experiences to evoke images of 
renewal and rising like a phoenix from the ashes after a damaging relationship.

A Minute Ago

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Unlearning

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