Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

To be enchanted is an honour many never feel or even witness. So wrapped up in the pursuit of goals that in the end matter very little, they forget or even are unfortunate to live in places which look down upon, the feeling that comes with the sound of a voice filling the air and letting the heart break with a certain amount of joy, it is those other pursuits or government interjections that prohibit the reality of life, to be enchanted.

For Melene Markussen, the joy and the pathos of playing at The Cavern as part of the International Pop Overthrow was palpable, it was a tangible moment in time in which to be on the stage and deliver the ethereal and substantial to the audience inside The Cavern.

The sound of the Norwegian story-teller is not lost upon the people of Liverpool, thanks to L.I.P.A., the ties that bind Norway to this part of the U.K. through such artists as Ragz and Science of the Lamps are deeply engrained and it is to be hoped unbreakable. It is a tie that can only be strengthened by the appearance of artists such as Melene Markussen at the I.P.O.

Although the set was on the smaller side compared to many of the acts that graced the back stage on the Friday afternoon, it was nonetheless as well received as any by the audiences who made their way back and forth between the two stages.

The sound of the mystic, the calling to another time and place hung heavy in the air and as the sound of the keyboard amplified this sense of dusk and the story-teller’s pact with their audience, songs such as Imagining, Went Away, Alt Dufinner and Aldriiro were played with such a sense of beauty that it didn’t matter that the set was not expansive, the sound of the spiritual and the soul of Oslo more than captured Time as an entity.

A very enjoyable set which had a completeness of dusk and shadow attached to its core, a great addition to the I.P.O.

Ian D. Hall