Making Marks is set to bring a lot of new surprises beginning with debut album 'A Thousand Half-Truths'.

Making Marks

Having met in 2007, keyboardist/vocalist Nina Bø, guitarist/vocalist Ola Innset, bassist Marie Sneve and drummer Jørgen Nordby set up My Little Pony and subsequently released two studio albums while making quite a splash during their US and Europe touring. Despite that project going 'downhill', they have no regrets about their first musical ventures and even named themselves after their last My Little Pony album when they re-connected a second time in 2012. The Oslo band have marked their re-arrival with plenty of international touring, released three singles so far and are now about to unleash their debut album 'A Thousand Half-Truths'.

It may be an album of half-truths, but there could be nothing truer than to say that this is one ear-friendly collection of songs; evocative, emotional and with a simplicity behind the melodies that make it sound just effortlessly beautiful. 'We've played the songs now for a year just touring so it's going to be nice to have it out physically', Jorgen told us in a video interview at Six Foot Over Recording Studios in Oslo, before also revealing that there will be some nice surprises in store. 

Watch the video interview here:

'We have a couple of songs in Norwegian now', he said. 'One on the album and also one we're going to release as a single... [People] are really curious to hear our language.' That single is 'Uten en trad'; a euphoric mix of tender guitar riffs and soaring vocals, with the Ola/Nina harmonies giving it some added depth. Let's face it, we've no idea what it's about, but there can be no doubt that that is one beautiful track.

Listen to 'Uten en tråd' by Making Marks here:

Their other foreign language tune is the equally easy-listening 'Nøkkelkort', and their two previous singles are debut 'Ticket Machine' and 'Barcodes'; both of which have distinct indie vibes though 'Ticket Machine' has a definite country twang to it and the latter is a lot more melancholy. 

Listen to 'Barcodes' by Making Marks here:

There's no denying, with songs like these, it's obvious that a lot of skill and artistry has gone into the instrumentation and Marie admits there has been a lot of tutoring going on amongst the group to get to that astounding level. 'It is Ola who's my greatest influence as a musician because he taught me everything I know about playing the bass guitar', she confesses. 'Marie wasn't the best player before we got tired of spending our time with sh***y real musicians [and thought] we'd rather spend our time with our friends', Jorgen continues. 'So we asked our friend Marie to join the band and she was no musician but we turned her into one.' (Nina is then quick to point that, actually, far from not being a musician previously, Marie was in fact very skilled at trumpeting.)

Watch Making Marks perform 'Bruises' here:

Apart from influencing each other, there is a broad range of musical inspiration among the band members. Jorgen revealed that the last band he was listening to was Wye Oak, while Ola went '60s with his last listen being Martha and the Vandellas and Nina revealed she'd recently listened to Jens Lekman's last album. 'He answered my email once', Ola said of Lekman. 'I asked him if he wanted to be on my Christmas song in 2008. He said, 'I don't really like Christmas but good luck'.'

So what's in store for 2014? 'I guess we're not going to tour as much as we did in the past year', says Jorgen, but before you get really depressed, they'll still be doing a few rounds in the UK this winter before hitting Europe in May. Meanwhile you can look forward to 'A Thousand Half-Truths' which is due out on Fika Recordings on February 3rd 2014.

Making Marks