On The Verge

Tommy Tokyo & Starving for My Gravy

Discovered at Norway’s by:Larm festival
Oslo, Norway
The Scandinavian Lou Reed
www.tommytokyo.com

“I was up in the mountains, just behind the place I grew up, picking mushrooms, when I heard a small airplane cutting through the clouds directly above me,” recalls Norwegian musician Tommy Tokyo of his nom de guerre. “Just behind the plane there was a long banner with the saying, ‘Tokyo is a lot closer than you think.’” Tokyo and his band, Starving for My Gravy, have a trail of influences that they happily display, that range from PJ Harvey, Lou Reed and Antony Hegarty to Neutral Milk Hotel, The Cure and Beck. Tokyo, who quit working in a mill two years ago to pursue music fulltime while supporting a family, has a vocal range that spans from pensive to bombarding. The songs—all sung in English—cartwheel around the open-ended pysch folk sound—at times quiet and fragile, at other times vaudevillian and parading. “I feel that music should be a bit out of control—up, down and sideways,” says the big-bearded Tokyo. These elements, combined with Toyko’s poet-like command of language, deliver music with depth and bracing earnestness. “I just do what the moment has to offer,” he says. “I never plan what I should do.”