Oslo, Norway · electronic · avant-pop · art pop

Smerz

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Norwegian duo's icy avant-pop — classical strings meet club unease, beauty kept deliberately off-balance, fashion-week cool with conservatory bones.

Henriette Motzfeldt and Catharina Stoltenberg met at high school in Oslo and moved together to Copenhagen in 2011, where they began working as Smerz. The name comes from the German word herzschmerz, meaning heartache. In Copenhagen, Motzfeldt studied composition at the Rhythmic Music Conservatory, where classmates included Erika de Casier, ML Buch and Astrid Sonne.

Their music sets whispered, close-miked vocals against sparse club rhythms, sudden silences and passages of strings and other acoustic instruments. Songs are frequently short and structurally unsettled, moving between something like pop and something closer to sound collage, with the Norwegian and English lyrics kept low and conversational in the mix.

Smerz released the debut single "Because" on SoundCloud in 2016, followed by the EP Okey through the Danish label Escho and the UK's HardUp. They signed to XL Recordings in 2017, which reissued Okey, and put out a second EP, Have fun, the following year.

Their debut album, Believer, arrived on XL Recordings in 2021, alongside a mixtape, Før og etter, released on their own label, Shopping. The duo have also hosted a monthly show on NTS Radio since 2017.

Smerz have played Tate Modern in London, MoMA PS1 in New York, Berghain and Volksbühne in Berlin, and Mutek events in Mexico City and Montreal.

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electronicavant-popart pop