Continuing our 2010 preview series we’ve had Knut B. Lindbjør from the excellent blog Eardrums Music consult his crystal ball to give us his insight on the immediate musical future of Norway. Remember our standing invitation to share your own below and don’t forget to check out the Finnish, Icelandic and Danish previews.

2009 has been a very good year for Norwegian pop, and 2010 looks like it will be even better. Several really good indiepop labels have started to pop up in recent years, and with them lots of interesting bands. Or maybe it was the other way around? While Norway in the 90s and 00s have been dominated by dark rock bands, the next decade seems to be one of melody and POP! Here’s some of the bands I have biggest hopes for in 2010.

Therese Aune (photo) is one of the new names that I hope will reach a bigger audience in 2010. She has not yet released an album, but was a part of the fine ‘Oslo 2’ compilation, released by a young, but important pop label in Oslo, SpoonTrainAudio. Her stunningly beautiful music is mostly based on her strong, expressive voice accompanied by a piano. Sometimes she adds toy instruments and other sounds to her recordings. I take a lot of photos as a hobby, and Therese Aune’s music gives me kind of the same feeling as when I discover the beauty and the “art-like” in something old, decayed and “ugly”. There is a depth there, there is something so beautiful in the things that are not perfect, the things that are partly broken or rusty. Aune’s music is a bit rusty and broken, but that’s what makes it perfect for me.

Serena Maneesh is probably already known to some readers, and this year they will hopefully get their name out to even more. They are newly signed to cred-label 4AD, and they will release their second album in March 2010. I’ve heard one of the new songs and was blown away by the wonderful sound of it. Their noise-drenched guitar pop, often compared to bands like My Bloody Valentine and Velvet Underground, has gained lots of praise around the world, and my guess is that 2010 will be an important year for the band. Since their debut, Ådne Meisfjord from another much hyped Norwegian band, 120 Days, has joined the band on electronics.

Moddi is a unique artist from the northern parts of Norway who will release his debut on Propeller Recordings February 8. His music is quite poetic and dreamy, but at the same time he has a lot of roughness in his sound. It’s of course a cliché, but I often think of the rough northern nature when I listen to his music. Sea, wind, mountains, waves, seagulls… But also heavy storms, rain and snow. His album is recorded in Iceland with Valgeir Sigurdsson (Björk, Ane Brun, CocoRosie ++) as a producer. After this year’s Øya Festival in Oslo, Pitchfork wrote: “Quietly intense acoustic guitar, smoldering strings, and a haunting Norwegian-accented voice caught my ear like a tractor beam. This was Moddi, who hail from some tiny island in the north, and who nobody I spoke with knew much about but everyone seemed impressed with.”

The pop band Monzano is another of my favorites – a band I have followed since their beginning several years ago. They will release their second album early next year, and the little I have heard from it so far sounds amazing. The band’s singer is Sjur Lyseide, a man probably more known for his side-project The Little Hands Of Asphalt, and on this new album the singer from one of last year’s newcomers Norma Sass sings on one of the songs. Both Norma Sass and TLHoA are definitely worth checking out, too.

OTHER NORWEGIAN ARTISTS TO WATCH IN 2010:

The Megaphonic Thrift (noisy pop) – MySpace
Hiawata! (jangly indiepop with charming melodies) – MySpace
Einar Stray (Norway’s Sufjan, indie/folk) – MySpace
Line Larsen (intelligent pop with rough edges) – MySpace
Kråkesølv (great melodic indie, sung in their local dialect) – MySpace
Maribel (Shoegaze, often compared to My Bloody Valentine) – MySpace
My Little Pony (sweet, happy indiepop) – MySpace
Batte (quite unknown, also in Norway, but his semi-electronic music is so beautiful that I have to mention him. Reminds me of the music of Canada’s Caribou) – MySpace
Like Spinning (newcomer, lovely folky songs) – MySpace
Cold Mailman (will release his second album in 2010, folky pop with “hardcore structures”) – MySpace
CCTV (catchy indie) – MySpace
Casa Murilo (jangly indie pop with irresistable melodies) – MySpace
Julie Stokkendal (beautiful acoustic pop) – MySpace
Team Me/SIN (semi-electronic pop. SIN features the bass-player of The Wombats, and Team Me is the other half of the duo SIN, but also a solo project) – MySpace (Team Me) – MySpace (SIN)