ØRJAN
NILSEN
words by: Kurtis Hooper
submitted photo
There’s no denying Norwegian trance artist Ørjan Nilsen has
been on a roll. Playing DJ Mags top-100 party in London
England along with being one of the highest ranked trance
artists coming in at #49 this year. Earlier this fall Nilsen
debuted his brand new sub-label under Armada records
entitled ‘In My Opinon’, aptly named after his breakthrough
artist album from 2011. Along with a second studio album ‘No
Saint Out of Me’ released earlier this year the Kirkenes native
shows no signs of slowing down.
Nilsen undeniably has a loyal fan base. In Toronto speci?cally
trance diehards were devastated when his ?ight was cancelled
last year, halting the cities debut performance, which was
already overdue. Over a year later Nilsen played an energetic
set in Maison Mercer a lavish and decorative venue which
hadn’t seen a trance artist of this calibre set foot in it’s high
ceilinged main room. DJ Mag Canada sat down to an early
morning coffee with Ørjan before catching his ?ight to Miami
later in that afternoon.
I would usually ask you what it’s like coming
off of festival season to play some solo shows
during the fall, but for you speci?cally that rush
isn’t over yet. You are playing Tomorrowworld
this Sunday at 4pm!
Tomorrowland has a fantastic reputation! If there’s one thing
I know about Americans it’s that they like to make it big when
they do something. There’s a reason why it ended up in the
states. I’m guessing Tomorrowworld is going to be just as big,
and probably even more crazy. The hype around that party is
insane.
Being in North America myself I’ve witnessed
the hype surrounding the festival.
Well there’s quite a few European people going as well. I talked
to a couple Norwegian guys who are also going over there
because they just want to see how big it is.
You say that the North American audiences like
to go ‘big’ but are there any dance music trends
from Europe you’ve noticed haven’t developed
over hear yet?
So far they’ve been very open minded, as long as you keep it
mixed up. I don’t think that they are too much into the 140
bpm trance with the long breakdowns yet. Well actually that
being said in Europe it’s starting to go down a bit because
people don’t have the same attention span as they used to. It’s
shorter, more in your face, and direct. I think it’s something
that needs to be taught, and about how to act around it. I
usually play very energetic sets with short breaks, so for me
it’s good. For the music that I play it’s been fantastic.
So you are ?ying to Miami in a matter of hours
and at this point you don’t actually have a show
to play.
Well in the spur of the moment me and Phillip have a whole
day in Miami to go there anyways. We are basically going to
ask some local people where’s a good place to meet and greet
people, hopefully ?nd a venue where we can have a short little
private set. At least they’ll get to hear me a little bit. I don’t
think this has been done so it’s going to be interesting to see
if we get some people to actually come over. We are going to
use Twitter and Facebook.
www.djmag.ca
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