Cosmic folk. That’s the term Lucinda Williams put on Darling West after sharing the stage with the Norwegian duo a few years back. An appropriate term, even though their new material also leans into sunnier and more band oriented West Coast landscapes.

Darling West are always on the move. Since the release of their Spellemann-winning (Norwegian Grammy) album Vinyl and a Heartache (2016), they’ve been to the United States so often that you easily could call it their second homeland, and in Europe, Germany and the Netherlands are their main territories besides their native Norway. Their Nordic twist on American songwriting traditions was further showcased with While I Was Asleep (2018) and We’ll Never Know Unless We Try (2020).

The quartet is led by the husband-and-wife duo Mari and Tor Egil Kreken, and the last couple of years they’ve toured excessively. They’ve played small cafes, popular clubs and bigger festivals, and are currently preparing to release their fifth album «Cosmos» in march 2023. Their last album «We’ll Never Know Unless We Try» (2020) reached #20 on the Americana charts on American Radio, and #1 on the Contemporary Folk chart.