Øya Festival organisers are kicking off 2026 with a strong four-leaf clover of artists. Americans BAND OF HORSES is doing a festival-exclusive celebration of their 20-year-old debut album in Tøyenparken. In addition, MARIT LARSEN, BETH MCBRIDE and HANNAH STORM are ready to create a good festival atmosphere in August.
The island has been the first meeting place with a Norwegian audience for many international artists. After the concert in 2006, a strong love affair developed between BAND OF HORSES (US) and Norwegian fans. This was the first European festival Band of Horses was booked for. This is where their particularly good foothold in Scandinavia began.
Now they are coming to Oslo to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their debut album Everything All the Time. This modern classic is full of strong melodic rock, with elements of both folk and indie aesthetics. The album was released on the ever-young Sub Pop and produced by Phil Ek, who has also worked with Built to Spill, Shins, Fleet Foxes and many others. The album’s big hit The Funeral has since been used in countless contexts in films, series and TV spots.
Ultimately, the band’s most winning trait is its delicate balance of elements– between gloom and promise, quiet and loud, epic and ordinary, familiar and new, direct and elliptical, artist and listener. Each of these aspects makes the others sound stronger and more complex, making Everything All the Time an album that’s easy to get lost in and even easier to love – Pitchfork
MARIT LARSEN took the pop world by storm in the late 1990s as one half of the duo M2M. They had global hits, and sold over 12 million albums and singles worldwide. Marit Larsen is currently receiving much praise for her participation in Every Time We Meet.
Over the past 20 years, Marit has built an impressive and timeless pop catalog, with success both in Norway and internationally. As a solo artist, she has released a number of critically acclaimed albums, won several awards and established herself as one of Norway’s foremost songwriters, with songs such as Don’t Save Me, I Don’t Want To Talk About It and Under The Surface. With the EP Joni Was Right (2016), Larsen took a musical sidetrack into a more folk-inspired landscape. In May 2024, she followed up with her first EP in Norwegian, Hun er min, which was brilliantly received.
HANNAH STORM is considered one of the most promising new names on the Norwegian music scene. She has already performed in Mexico, the UK, Argentina and Spain, played on the biggest stages here at home and on several occasions warmed up for AURORA.
After releasing the first taste of her upcoming debut album – the single Taxi which came out in November – HANNAH STORM follows up this week with the song Special. It was written in London with Eg White; a man whose CV includes collaborations with artists such as Adele, Florence + The Machine, Kylie Minogue and P!nk.
Hannah recently visited Argentina for the first time, a trip that resulted in a major Billboard Latin America spread and reached two hundred million people via the magazine’s social media. It looks like 2026 will be an exciting year for Hannah Storm.
BETH MCBRIDE is the solo project of singer-songwriter Bethany Forseth-Reichberg, known from bands such as Mall Girl and tigerstate. With a dream of writing her own music, a guitar and some life experiences richer, she has now completed her debut album, which will be released on Warner/ADA in 2026. The taster No Need to Hide was released in early January.
Beth McBride was born in the USA and her music is about getting back to her roots, trusting her intuition and dreaming big. We look forward to her presenting her music to a large and curious Øya audience
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