Måkeskrik (Gulls Cry) is a two-day alternative music festival in Kristiansand, Norway in the genre of rock/pop/metal and with affordable ticket prices. Måleskrik was arranged for the first time on 27 and 28 July 2012 as a replacement of the so-called Quart Festival which was canceled in 2008 filing the managing company for bankruptcy. Read how a stubborn desire to run music festivals in Kristiansand saucceeded.

The Quart Festival was an annual popular music festival that took place in the beginning of July. It was the most visited music festival in Norway. It was first named Qvadradurmusivalen in 1991, but changed into the more ear-catching Quart Festival the following year. For several years Quart was the largest music festival in Norway, but went bankrupt in 2008 in part due to tough competition from other festivals.

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Alternative music and scandals
The Quart Festival was revived by one of the original organizers on 30 June to 4 July 2009. Slash’s performance was backed by Teddy Andreadis, Jason Bonham, Chris Cheney, John 5 and Frankie Perez, and included guest performances from Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie Wood and Fergie.

The festival was an economic disaster with low attendances and slow revenues. The festival was by mid-September 2009 still not able to pay their employees and filed again for bankruptcy.

There have been some scandals during the years. A local band Flying Crap fired a shotgun from the stage in 1995. Marilyn Manson ripped a bible on stage in 1999. The Kovenant burned a bible on stage in 2000. Mayhem threw pigs’ heads at the audience in 2001. Eight musicians from hiphop group Equicez were arrested for drug offences in 2003. Kristopher Schau attached an engine to a dead pig and used it as a boat in 2003 and two persons from rainforest charity group Fuck For Forest had live sex on stage during a concert with The Cumshots in 2004.

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A Stubborn Desire to Run Music Festivals in Kristiansand, Norway
In the fall of 2010, the dream of Gulls Cry was born.  Cathrine Sørensen, who has grown up in Kristiansand, wanted to build a new festival in beautiful Bendiksbukta where the Quart Festival left behind a huge void in the city’s cultural life.

The plan was to establish a more intimate festival where the audience could discover new exciting artists and more established bands in the southern archipelago. With good friends and some hundred volunteers, the dream became reality in the summer of 2012.

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Gulls Cry Festival
Måkeskrik has since then worked to strengthen the cultural offering in Kristiansand. The festival was established as an association and run on voluntary basis.

Over seven years, Måkeskrik has presented over 80 bands and artists on stage in Bendiksbukta. The festival has a strong focus on Scandinavian artists and the unique live experience. 12 and 13 July 2019 will be no exception!

A Stubborn Desire to Run Music Festivals in Kristiansand, Norway, written by Tor Kjolberg

By her early twenties Sasha Siem had written music for the London Symphony Orchestra, The Royal Opera House, Rambert Dance Company, Opera North, The Aldeburgh Festival, Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, The London Sinfonietta, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. in 2010 she became one of the youngest people to win a British Composer Award. Meet British-Norwegian Singer-Songwriter and Composer Sasha Siem

Sasha Kathrine Siem was born in London 1984. At the age of 11 she read The Caged Bird by Maya Angelou, and was so struck she set about trying to transpose it into music. Her first ever song opened up something inside her. “Writing that first song set something free within me,” she has explained.

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Siem studied music and poetry at Cambridge University and Harvard University. Since then, she’s constantly written, continually developing and honing her voice, moving into strikingly individual places. Today, the singer, song writer and cello performer has three albums under her belt.

Meet British-Norwegian Singer-Songwriter and Composer Sasha Siem
The artist wrote and performed a good part of her third album, Holy, when she lived in Brooklyn with her husband and new baby. She explains that she uses past experiences like motherhood, feminism and a traumatic incident from her past as inspiration for her music.

Her second album, Bird Burning, recalls Kate Bush in its fusion of the organic with the digital, while the lyrics pick apart the mythology surround Eve, and wonders why that Biblical sense of guilty still lingers in Western society’s conception of the feminine.

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How will you describe your latest album ‘Holy’?
When asked how she would describe her third album, Sasha says she’s given up trying to categorize the music. She’s just calling it POP. “Holy is an arms-wide-open embrace-all pop album. I want people to sing their hearts out and dance, dance, dance as they listen,” she says.

Holy is her first album under the moniker Frigga – a reference to the Norse goddess of love and destiny. Regardless of the name she’s performing under, Siem makes music that will be familiar to anyone who’s heard her work before; lyrics are chanted over hypnotic instrumentation to create pop-tinged poetry that wouldn’t be out of place in a dance club or a world-class concert hall.

The video was filmed in Siem’s New York living room in an effort to keep things feeling close and cozy.

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Many parallels have been drawn
While parallels have been drawn with pioneering singer-songwriters such as Tom Waits, Jacques Brel, Björk, and Joanna Newsom, the influence of art-song composers such as György Kurtág, Claude Vivier, and Salvatore Sciarrino is equally evident in her music.

The Guardian noted that Siem is “making waves in the music scene”, while CBS has hailed her as a “woman of note” and a talent to watch.

Her three albums
Sasha explains: “My first album, Most of the Boys, was written from the vantage point of ‘me’ – one individual persona – a young woman coming of age, wanting to believe in love and failing at it over and over again. The second album, Bird Burning, was a story about a couple and the dynamic between the two. My third album is a series of anthems – it’s about the collective experience – the things that make us human, the aspects of our cosmos that unite us. So, in a way it completes a cycle of expansion I wanted to create – from ME, to WE.”

Meet British-Norwegian Singer-Songwriter and Composer Sasha Siem, written by Tor Kjolberg